BY A. G. HAMILTON. 683 



besmeared with the secretion, and rest on the small sessile glands, 

 which, if we may judge by the analogy of Drosophyllum, then 

 pour forth their secretion and afterwards absorb the digested 

 matter." 



It is a fine illustration of the keen insight of the ijreat 

 naturalist that he should have been able to write so accurate a 

 description, and form so correct a conception of the functions of 

 the glands and their method of action from a dried specimen. 

 There is little to add to the above. When an insect is caught by 

 the stalked glands, these collapse under the weight, and pour out 

 secretion; the victim rests on the sessile glands, and these add to 

 the flow of liquid. This gradually dissolves the solvent portions 

 of the prey, and the secretion runs down the channels in which 

 the sessile glands are seated and is absorbed by them. The liquid 

 flowing down the channels enables the glands which are not in 

 contact with the insect to do a share of the absorption. After 

 all the solvent parts have been removed, the glands cease to 

 secrete; the indigestible parts dry up and drop off as in Drosera. 

 I am inclined to think that the collapsed pedicels again become 

 upright, not through any power of movement, but by becoming- 

 turgid by absorption of the secretion. I am led to this belief, 

 first, from noticing how few of the stalks were bent down, even 

 in the vicinity of a captured insect; and secondly, because in a 

 leaf mounted in glycerine many stalks doubled up and la}^ flat or 

 crumpled, but after a time regained their erect position. 



As already mentioned, the leaves are triangular : the widest 

 side is next to the stem. The epidermis is moderately thin, those 

 rows of cells from which the glands emerge being small, and the 

 eglandular epidermis between — generally in two rows of cells — 

 large and circular in section-outline. Inside the epidermis is a 

 laj'er of palisade and spongy tissue, of three or four rows of cells 

 (^g. II, ])t.). The palisade tissue is looser than in ordinary 

 leaves, and the spongy tissue closer than usual, so that it is hard 

 to diflerentiate between the two layers. Just under the rows of 

 epidermal cells which carr}' the glands, the palisade cells are 

 closer together, two or three touchinc: each row. The centre of 



