20 
But there were certain circumstances which took place on the Bed- 
dington farm which satisfied me that this theory was wrong in its 
premises, and a close examination of the subject convinced me that 
animal matter need not be so resolved before it became assimilated 
into plant life; that as far as rye grass was concerned it might be 
considered carnivorous in its tastes, and that it digested animal 
matter in a manner not unlike to the amceba and other animals in 
the lowest grade of the animal kingdom. I published this idea in 
1868, but it was thought to be Utopian, and I could not put my 
opinion against those of the distinguished physiologists I have men- 
tioned with any chance of a hearing. But at the meeting of the 
-British Asssociation, held in Belfast last year, some statements were 
made by eminent men which have emboldened me to bring forward 
my idea again as to the carnivorous nature of rye grass, and to 
submit some of the points raised to your notice. At that meeting 
Dr. Burdon Sanderson stated that if the leaf of the Drosera Dionwa 
(Venus’s fly trap, of which there are several specimens on the table) 
was examined at the moment when it contracted on an unfortunate 
fly, a galvanic action was developed similar to that which was 
exhibited when a muscle contracted, showing a state of vitality 
somewhat different from that of contractility alone. Then Dr. 
Hooker, of the Royal Gardens at Kew, followed with observations 
upon the digestion of animal matter, which sometimes was observed 
to take place in some of the Nepenthes or Pitcher plants, as well as 
in the Saraceniacee or Side-saddle plants. (Specimens were here 
shown.) That eminent naturalist, Mr. Darwin, then stated that 
the digestion which took place when the Drosera digested the fly 
whieh happened to be caught between the leaflets of the plant, was 
precisely similar to that which takes place in the human stomach 
when food is dissolved by gastric juice. The agreement of these 
great savans to the principle that it was not requisite for animal 
matter to putrify before it was absorbed into plant tissue, seemed so 
fully to support my original idea regarding rye grass, that I sub- 
mitted my view to the Medieal Officers of Health in London about 
a month since, and I now wish to interest you in the same direction. 
There are several plants of rye grass in the room, and some rootlets 
in some of the microscopes, and an examination of these cbjects 
will enable you to see how it may be as easy for the minute fibres 
there visible to digest animal matter as it is for the leaflet of the 
Drosera. If anyone will examine a field of rye grass, he will find it 
in several distinct states, according to the time the individual plant 
has been growing. If it has been cut for two or three years, there 
will be a tangled mass of rootlets around the plants which are above, 
the ground, which are comparatively absent in a younger set. If 
these rootlets are examined as the sewage passes on to the field, it 
will be seen that they take up an active movement immediately the 
sewage comes near them, and if at that moment the fibrillz of the 
