264 SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



function for such modified hairs to be converted 

 into glands which shall secrete a viscid fluid capable 

 of digesting albuminous substances, like the tentacles 

 of the Sundews, and I strongly suspect that the 

 Henbane {HyoscyamiLs niger^ is now in such a transi- 

 tion state, for its sticky stem is always covered with 

 dead and dying flies. 



The Sundew family has a marvellously wide 

 geographical distribution, considering the peculiar 

 habits of its members. About one hundred species 

 are known, belonging to several genera, all of which 

 partake in the Sundew mode of life. Nearly all 

 affect the same physical conditions. They are essen- 

 tially marsh -loving plants, and in such places are 

 found throughout Europe, India, China, the Cape of 

 Good Hope, Madagascar, North and South America, 

 and Australia — practically a cosmopolitan distribu- 

 tion. How singularly their habits and structure 

 coincide in species inhabiting countries so far apart, 

 and what a remarkable dispersion the same species 

 sometimes has, will be seen from the following 

 remarks in Kingsley's At Last, of a specimen he 

 found in the Savannah of Aripo : " My kind guide 

 put into my hand, with something of an air of 

 triumph, a little plant, which was, there was no 

 denying it, none other than the long- leaved Sun- 

 dew (yDrosera longifolid), with its clammy -haired 

 paws full of dead flies, just as they would have been 

 in any bog in Devonshire or in Hampshire, in Wales 



