366 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. Yol. vii.] 



From the mouth to a vyriable distance dowu the pitcher is an 

 opaque glaucous surface, precisely resembling in colour and ap 

 pearance the conductive surface of the Sarracenia, and, like it, 

 affording no foothold to insects, but otherwise wholly different ; 

 it is formed of a fine network of cells, covered with a glass-like 

 cuticle, and studded with minute reuiform transverse excres- 

 cences. 



The rest of the pitcher is entirely occupied with the secretive 

 surface, which consists of a cellular floor crowded with spherical 

 glands in inconceivable numbers. Each gland precisely resem- 

 bles a honey-gland of the lid, and Js contained in a pocket of the 

 same nature, but semicircular, with the mouth downwards, so 

 that the secretive fluid all falls to the bottom of the pitcher. In 

 the Nejyentlies Raffle a land 3,000 of the glands occur on a square 

 inch of the inner surface of the pitcher, and upwards of 1,000,000 

 in an ordinary sized pitcher. I have ascertained that, as was 

 indeed to be expected, they secrete the fluid which is contained 

 in the bottom of the pitcher before this opens, and that the fluid 

 is always acid. 



The fluid, though invariably present, occupies a comparatively 

 small portion of the glandular surface of the pitcher, and is col- 

 lected before the lid opens. When the fluid is emptied out of a 

 fully formed pitcher that has not received animal matter, it forms 

 again, but in comparatively very small quantities; and the for- 

 mation goes on for many days, and to some extent even after the 

 pitcher has been removed from the plant. I do not find that 

 placing inorganic substances in the fluid causes an increased 

 secretion, but I have twice observed a considerable increase of 

 fluid in pitchers after putting animal matter in the fluid. 



To test the digestive powers of Nepenthes I have closely fol- 

 lowed Mr. Darwin's treatment of Dionasa and Drosera, employing 

 white of egg, raw meat, fibrine, and cartilage. In all cases the 

 action is most evident, in some surprising. After twenty-four 

 hours' immersion the edges of the cubes of white of egg are 

 eaten away and the surfiices gelatinised. Fragments of meat are 

 rapidly reduced ; and pieces of fibrine weighing several grains 

 dissolve and totally disappear in two or three days. With car- 

 tilage the action is most remarkable of all ; lumps of this weigh- 

 ing 8 or 10 grains are half gelatinized in twenty-four hours, and 

 in three days the whole mass is greatly diminished, and reduced 

 to a clear transparent jolly. AlUr drying some cartilage in the 



