354 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [V^ol. viL 



Withiu a year of each other, two persons — one an Englishman, 

 the other a German — observed that the curious hairs which every- 

 one notices on the leaf of Drosera were sensitive. 



This is the account which Mr. Gardom, a Derbyshire botanist, 

 gives of what his friend Mr. Whiteley, "an eminent London 

 surgeon," made out in 1780: — "On inspecting some of the 

 contracted leaves we observed a small insect or fly very closely 

 imprisoned therein, which occasioned some astonishment as to 

 how it happened to get into so confined a situation. Afterwards, 

 on Mr. Whateley's ceutrically pressing with a pin other leaves 

 yet in their natural and expanded form, we observed a remark- 

 ably sudden and elastic spring of the leaves, so as to become 

 inverted upwards, and, as it were, encircling the pin, which 

 evidently showed the method by which the fly came into its 

 embarrassing situation." 



This must have been an account given from memory, and 

 represents the movement of the hairs as much more rapid than 

 it really is. 



In July of the preceding year (though the account was not 

 published till two years afterwards). Roth, in Germany, had 

 remarked in Droseni rotiindifoUa a:)d hngifolia, " that many 

 leaves were folded together from the point towards the base, and 

 that all the hairs wei-e bent like a bow, but that there was no 

 apparent change on the leaf-stalk." Upon opening these leaves, 

 he says, "I found in each a dead insect; hence I imagined that 

 this plant, which haM some resemblance to the Dioiuea muscijyuhiy 

 might also have a similar moving power." 



" With a pair of pliers I placed an ant upon the middle of 

 the leaf of D. rotimdi/oUa, but not so as to disturb the plant. 

 The ant endeavoured to escape, but w is held fast by the clammy 

 juice at the points of the hairs, which was drawn out by its feet 

 into fine threads. In some minutes the short hairs on the disc 

 of the leaf began to bend, then the long hairs, and laid them- 

 selves upon the insect. After a while the leaf began to bend, 

 and in some hours tlie end of the leaf was so bent inwards as to 

 touch the base. Tiie ant died in fifteen minutes, which was 

 b-fore all the hairs had bent themselves." 



These facts, established nearly a century ago by the testimony 

 of independent observers, have up to the present time been 

 ahnost ignored; and Trecul, writing in 1855, boldly assertecl 

 that the facts were not true. 



