INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 331 



though most probably only after maceration or de- 

 composition. In some of them even digestion, or 

 at least the absorption of undecomposed soluble ani- 

 mal juices, may be suspected ; but there is no proof 

 of it. But, if pitchers of the Sarracenia family are 

 only macerating vessels, those of Nepenthes — the 

 pitchers of the Indian Archipelago, familiar in con- 

 servatories — seem to be stomachs. The investigations 

 of the President of the Royal Society, Dr. Hooker, 

 although incomplete, wellnigh demonstrate that these 

 not only allure insects by a sweet secretion at the rim 

 and upon the lid of the cup, but also that their capt- 

 ure, or the presence of other partly soluble animal 

 matter, produces an increase and an acidulation of the 

 contained watery liquid, which thereupon becomes 

 capable of acting in the manner of that of Drosera 

 and Dioncea, dissolving flesh, albumen, and the like. 



After all, there never was just ground for denying 

 to vegetables the use of animal food. The fungi are 

 by far the most numerous family of plants, and they 

 all live upon organic matter, some upon dead and de- 

 composing, some upon living, some upon both ; and 

 the number of those that feed upon living animals 

 is large. Whether these carnivorous propensities of 

 higher plants which so excite our wonder be regarded 

 as survivals of ancestral habits, or as comparatively 

 late acquirements, or even as special endowments, in 

 any case what we have now learned of them goes to 

 strengthen the conclusion that the whole organic world 

 is akin. 



The volume upon " The Movements and Habits 

 of Climbing Plants " is a revised and enlarged edition 



