154 THE PRESIDENCY OF THE EOYAL SOCIETY 



poisoned by snake bites ? Is it not the case that snake 

 poison affects the blood corpuscles ? 



In August he writes : 



I rejoice to hear of your success with Drosera and long 

 to hear more of the acid reaction and the retardation of the 

 external digestive processes. I long to be at Nepenthes 

 the specimens are splendid and most inviting, but neither 

 I nor Dyer have had time. 



Later in the autumn there was more time for experimen- 

 tation. The work undertaken to supply Darwin with more 

 facts began to grow, and Darwin early suggested separate 

 publication of the results ; a suggestion not carried out till 

 the following year. 



Kew: October 20, 1873. 



DEAR DARWIN, A line only to say that I am at 

 Nepenthes, but it is a far more difficult affair than Drosera, 

 because of the thickness of the tissues. The structure of 

 the glands of the pouch below water mark is well made out 

 and described and consists of globose glands analogous I 

 take it to Drosera's tops of hairs, lying in a semi-circular 

 fold of the cuticle and half exposed. It is in these globose 

 glands that I must look for the action. 



The water is acid : it has been most carefully described 

 by Voelcker and others and I have, I find, referred to many 

 papers on anatomy of Nepenthes in my account of the 

 species for DC Prod., which is printed, I believe, but not yet 

 published. 



I have found rough copy and can send you a string of 

 authors. 



The correspondence continues at length through October. 

 ' Dyer is making excellent drawings and working like a horse 

 at it,' but ' the whole investigation is fearfully difficult com- 

 pared with Drosera.' Similar experiments produce analogous 

 action to that on the cells of Drosera. 



October 25, 1873. 



We are now trying the egg process. The pieces I put 

 into old pitchers last night were unaffected this morning. Did 



