130 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



This, however, is no proof. Although the Anemone 

 entraps its prey, or anything else that may come in 

 contact with its tentacles, this is no proof of animality ; 

 the sensitive plant, known as the Mytrap of Venus 

 (Dioncea muscipula), has a precisely analogous power ; 

 any insect, touching the sensitive hairs on the surface 

 of its leaf, instantly causes the leaf to shut up and 

 enclose the insect, as in a trap ; nor is this all : a 

 mucilaginous secretion acts like a gastric juice on the 

 captive, digests it, and renders it assimilable by the 

 plant, which thus feeds on the victim, as the Actinia 

 feeds on the Annehd or Crustacean it may entrap. 

 Where, then, is the difference ? Neither seeks its food : 

 place the food within a line's breadth of the tentacles, 

 or of the sensitive hairs, and so long as actual contact 

 is avoided, the grasping of the food will not take place. 

 But you object, perhaps, that this mode of feeding is 

 normal with the Actinia, exceptional with the Flytrap. 

 The plant, you say, is nourished by the earth and air, 

 the animal depends on what it can secure. Not so. 

 For granting — what, in fact, I sturdily dispute — that 

 the Flytrap is in no way dependent upon such insect 

 food as may fall into its clutch, we shall still observe 

 the Actinia in similar independence. Keep the water 

 free from all visible food, and the Actiniae continue to 

 flourish and propagate just as if they daily clutched an 

 unhappy worm. The fact is well known, and is cur- 

 rently, but erroneously, adduced as illustration of the 

 animal's power of fasting. But there is no fasting in 

 the matter. In this water free from visible aliment 



