Chap. III. 



THE PEOCESS OF AGGREGATION. 



41 



D, namely, llie formation of an extremely minute 

 sphere at one end of an elongated mass. This rapidly 

 increased in size, as shown in E, and was then re- 

 absorbed, as at F, by which time another sphere had 

 been formed at the opposite end. 



The cell above figured was from a tentacle of a dark 

 red leaf, which had caught a small moth, and was 

 examined under water. As I at first thought that the 

 movements of the masses might be due to the absorp- 

 tion of water, I placed a fly on a leaf, and when after 

 18 hrs. all the tentacles were well inflected, these were 

 examined without being immersed in water. The cell 







Fig. 8. 



{Drosera rotundifolia.') 



Diagram of the same cell of a tentacle, showing the various forms successively 

 assumed by the aggregated masses of protoplasm. 



here represented (fig. 8) was from this leaf, being 

 sketched eight times in the course of 15 m. These 

 sketches exhibit some of the more remarkable changes 

 which the protoplasm undergoes. At first, there was 

 at the base of the cell 1, £w little mass on a short 

 footstalk, and a larger mass near the upper end, and 

 these seemed quite separate. Nevertheless, they may 

 have been connected by a fine and invisible thread of 

 protoplasm, for on two other occasions, whilst one 

 mass was rapidly increasing, and another in the same 

 cell rapidly decreasing, I was able by varying the 

 light and using a high power, to detect a connecting 

 thread of extreme tenuity, which evidently served as 



