Ill Other Insectivorous Plants 51 



of too large a meal, this can hardly be regarded as a 

 serious objection against the alleged utility of the insecti- 

 vorous habit until we learn that the casualty is common in 

 nature. A similar objection might indeed be urged against 

 eating dinner. 



The gap left in Darwin's work was soon filled by his 

 son. Francis Darwin took six plates full of thriving plants 

 of sundew, and divided off each by a transverse bar. 

 Then, choosing the least flourishing side of each, he placed, 

 on 1 2th June 1877, roast meat in morsels of about ^L- of a 

 grain on the leaves, and renewed the dose at intervals. 

 Soon the plants on the fed sides were clearly greener than 

 those on the starved sides, and their leaves contained more 

 chlorophyll and starch. In less than two months the 

 number of flower-stalks was half as numerous again on 

 the fed as on the unfed sides, while the number and 

 diameter of the leaves and the colour of the flower-stalks 

 all showed a great superiority. " The flower-stalks were all 

 cut at the end of August, when their numbers were as 165 

 to 100, their total weight as 230 to 100, and the average 

 weight per stem as 140 to 100 for the fed and unfed sides 

 respectively. The total numbers of seed capsules were as 

 194 to 100, or nearly double, and the average number of 

 seeds in each capsule as 12 to 10 respectively. The 

 superiority of the fed plants over the unfed was even more 

 clearly shown by comparing their seeds, the average 

 weights per seed being as 157 to 100, their total cal- 

 culated number as 240 to 100, and their total weight as 

 380 to 100." 



"The fed plants, though at the commencement of the 

 experiment in a slight minority, were at the end of the 

 season 20 per cent more numerous than the unfed. In 

 the following spring the young plants which arose on the 

 fed side exceeded those on the unfed side by 1 8 per cent 



