60 Mr Spittal''s Repetition ofDuirocheis Experiments 



the fore-feet are furnished, would seem to favour the conclu- 

 sion. 



Within the stomach there was a quantity of sand, gravel, 

 and small pebbles, but there were no traces of food. In one 

 instance, within the lobulated body, there was, as I have already 

 noticed, a vast number of living ascarides ; but, in a second 

 instance, a few only were found, and in a third there were 

 many. Are these worms taken in from without, or are they 

 generated within the viscus .? If generated there, do they find 

 a retreat within the chambers of the central cavity, during the 

 early and triturating process of digestion ? 



Repetition of M. Dutrochefs Experiments on the Mimosa 

 pudica. By Robert Spittal, Esq. one of the Presidents of 

 the Plinian Natural History Society. 



As I have not observed any notice of M. Dutrochet's experi- 

 ments on the Mimosa pudica having been repeated in this 

 country, perhaps the following communication, containing an 

 account of some of these which I performed during the summer 

 of 1828, and again during the summer of 1829, may not be 

 altogether uninteresting. 



To give an idea of the opinion of this philo.sopher on the 

 structure and functions of the sensitive plant, I shall, before de- 

 scribing the corroborative experiments, present, in a few words, 

 a general view of those points which most concern the present 

 topic, that what follows may be the better understood. 



After much research, M. Dutrochet concludes that the Mi- 

 mosa pudica possesses the elements of a diffused nervous system, 

 more especially developed in the leaves and bourrelets situated 

 at the base of the petioles. This nervous apparatus, he ob- 

 serves, is seen on the walls of the cells and tubes of the plant, in 

 the form of small semitransparent globular and linear bodies, 

 which become opaque from the action of acids, and transparent 

 from that of alkalies. He believes that all the motions of the 

 sensitive plant are spontaneous, or depend on an internal princi- 

 ple, which receives the impressions of external agents, and that 

 the nervous apparatus mentioned conveys those impressions, or 

 is the seat of what he terms ncrvimotilitv. 



