On the Composition of Bird-lime. 



by 



Edward Divers, M.D., F.R.S. Prof., 



and 



Michitada Kawakita, M.E., F.C.S. Assl. Prof., 



Imperial University. 



Bird-lime seems never to have been examined to the extent to 

 yield results deemed worthy of publication, until the year 1884, when 

 J. l*ersonne made known those of his father's and his own examination 

 of it in the Comptes rendus, 98, 1585. When that paper appeared we 

 ourselves had been for some time occupied with the investigation of 

 Japanese bird-lime, and had already obtained results, which proved to 

 be in o;eneral ao;reement with those of Personne's examination, and 

 yet sufficiently unlike them, and in some respects in advance of them, 

 to lead us to continue our work, although he promised farther atten- 

 tion to the subject. I^p to the present date, however, nothing more 

 from him has appeared, and we now otfer this paper as an extension 

 and partial confirmatioîi of liis observations. 



Bird-lime, or Tori-mocJii, is prepared in Japan, just as it is in 

 Northern Europe, from a species of holly, by macerating and pound- 

 ing its inner bark in water, afterwards picking out the fragments of 

 crushed tissues from the viscid mass. Bird-lime exists, ready-formed 

 in the bark, in great abundance, and is not apparently modified in 

 any way by fermentative action during its preparation. In Europe 



