52 WEST AUSTRALIAN PITCHER-PLANT, 



bacteria, showed that true digestion, caused by a digestive 

 ferment, took place. And he has also shown that the digestive 

 principle, which is found in various organs of very many plants, 

 is trypsin or some allied ferment. I regret that T have been 

 unable to experiment in this direction, from the difficulty of 

 procuring enough of the fluid, but I hope, as my cultivated 

 plants increase, to be able to do so, and communicate the results 

 in another paper. 



There is no doubt that the liquid contains azerin or some 

 similar principle, as the insects falling into the fluid were 

 immediately wetted through, and drowned. 



The plants would certainly repay close observation by any one 

 resident in their native locality, and if I am correct in my 

 surmise that they are becoming extinct, it is to be hoped that 

 some one will take up the study before it is too late. I think 

 the trustees of one of our great national parks might well try 

 the experiment of getting some plants and placing them in some 

 of the swampy places with a view to acclimatisation. The swamps 

 occurring in places in the National Park at Waterfall are of 

 exactly the same character as the swamp at Albany where they 



References to Literature. 



(1) Kernee & Oliver. — Natural History of Plants. 



(2) Grant Allen. — The Story of the Plants. 



(3) Curtis. — Botanical Magazine, tt. 3118 and 3119. 



(4) A. Dickson. — ' On the Structure of the Pitcher in GepJialotus follicularis.^ 



Jour. Bot. xvi., 1. 



(5) W. WooLLS. — Lectures on Vegetable Kingdom, p. 100. 



(6) Strasburger. — A Text Book of Botany, 1898. p. 216. 



(7) P. Geddes. — Encyclopaedia Britannica — Art. Insectivorous Plants. 



(8) Lawson Tate. — Phil. Soc. of Birmingham, 1878. 



(9) P. Geddes — Chapters in Modern Botany. 

 (10) Nature, July 21, 1898. 



(11) N. Tischutkin. — Ber. der Deutschen Gesellschaft, 1888. 

 (12) Acta Horti Petropolitani, vol. xii. 



(13) Dubois. — Comptes Rendus, 1890. 



(14) S. H. Vines.— Proc. Linn. Soc. London, Oct. 1903. 



