22: 



NATURE 



\yuly 22, 1875 



sentiment, whether conservative or liberal, but from a 

 thorough appreciation of the weight of conflicting evidence. 

 Crawfurd and others notwithstanding, Prof. Whitney 

 assures us that the Malayan, the Polynesian, and the Me- 

 lanesian languages may henceforth be safely treated as one 

 family, as more closely related, therefore, than Mongolic 

 and Tartaric. One more instance. The Annamese or 

 Cochin Chinese, the Siamese, and the Burmese, whatever 

 their differences, are all alike, we are told, in the capital 

 point, that they are uninflected, and this cannot but be re- 

 garded as a strong indication of ultimate relationship. 

 Provisionally, therefore, they are to be classed together as 

 the South-eastern Asiatic, or Monosyllabic Family. All we 

 can say at present is that we hope this is the classifica- 

 tion of knowledge, and not of ignorance, and that we shall 

 soon have XhQ pieces justificatives, particularly with regard 

 to the Burmese and Siamese. Some new light may also 

 be expected from Prof. Whitney with regard to Chinese, 

 the literature of which, we are told, goes back to 2000 

 B.C., whatever sceptics may say to the contrary. On all 

 these points our expectations are raised to the highest 

 pitch, and we hope that the professor will soon find 

 leisure to give us not only his conclusions, but the facts 

 on which they are founded. As we said in the be- 

 ginning, we are disappointed by his present book ; we 

 are quite willing, however, to look upon it as a promise 

 and we have no doubt that the American scholar wil 

 soon redeem the pledges which he has given, and thus not 

 only relieve the science of language from " the incon- 

 gruities and absurdities " of English, German, and French 

 scholars, but enrich it by truly original American dis- 

 coveries. 



We may point out a few of the inaccuracies as to 

 matters of fact which struck us in the Professor's new 

 book. 



Prof. Whitney thinks that green may be derived from 

 to grow. Is not the root really HAR, and the transition 

 of meaning, to be bright, to be green, to grow (griinen) ? 

 See Curtius, s.v. x^orj. 



Agra, as a Sanskrit word corresponding to aypis, is 

 probably a misprint only. The true Sanskrit word is 

 Ajra, field, with the palatal media, whereas ag;ra means 

 point. 



The nasals are not formed by exit through the nose 

 (p. 63) ; on the contrary the more we shut the nostrils 

 the more nasal becomes our pronunciation. One of the 

 earhest phoneticians, De Brosses (1709-1778), remarked 

 very truly : " On s'exprime k contre-sens, quand on dit, 

 parler du tiezj c'est une espece d'antiphrase : on parlerait 

 du nez si on n'en avait point. S'il est bouchd, si I'air n'y 

 passe pas librement, on parlera, on chantera du nez." 



The derivation of lutia from hccna (p. 83) is no longer 

 tenable, because we have to take into account the dialectic 

 form losna, presupposing an original loux-na as in illus. 

 tris for inluxtris. 



On p. 215, in discussing words like brother and sister, 

 bull and cow, ram and ewe, Prof Whitney says : " Man 

 in its distinctive sense indicates a male animal, and we 

 have a different word, woman, for a female of the same 

 kind." The choice of the illustration is not quite happy, 

 considering that woman, as is well known to Prof. 

 Whitney, is only a corruption of wif-man. 



M. M. 



DARWIN ON CARNIVOROUS PLANTS * 



II. 



Insectivorous Plants. By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S,, 



&c. With Illustrations. (London : J. Murray, 1875.) 



IN the Venus's Fly-trap, Dioncea muscipula (Fig. 5), we 

 have a further differentiation of the organs of assimila- 

 tion. The sensibility or irritabihty resides in three hairs — 

 termed by Mr. Darwin " filaments " — on each half of the 

 upper surface of the bilateral leaf; while the function of 

 absorption appears to belong only to a number of small 

 purplish almost sessile glands which thickly cover the 

 whole of the upper face. These glands have also the 

 power of secretion ; but only — and here we have another 

 variation from Drosera — when excited by the absorption 

 of nitrogenous matter. The filaments are sensitive both 

 to sudden impact and to contact with other substances, 

 except water ; the lobes of the leaf closing together, in 

 the former case very suddenly, in the latter more slowly. If 

 the leaf has closed in consequence of sudden impact or of 

 the contact of non-nitrogenous matter, the two lobes remain 

 concave, enclosing a considerable cavity ; shortly re-open 

 in perhaps twenty-four hours ; and are at once again irri- 

 table. When, however, the irritating foreign substance 

 contains soluble nitrogenous matter, the lobes of the leaf 

 become gradually pressed closely together, and remain 

 closed for a period of many (from nine to twenty-four) days ; 

 and when they again open, if they ever do so, are at first 

 scarcely sensitive to renewed irritation. The mode in 

 which (as Mr. Darwin shows) this arrangement is service- 

 able to the plant by securing the capture of large and 

 permitting the escape of small insects, is highly curious, 

 but too long to quote. The absorption of nitrogenous 

 matter by the glands is accompanied by an aggregation 

 of the protoplasm in the cells of the filaments, similar to 

 that observed in Drosera, but this result does not follow 

 the simple irritation of the filaments. The series of ex- 

 periments described appears to prove the existence of an 

 actual process of digestion in Dioncea, the closed leaf 

 forming a temporary stomach, within which the acid 

 secretion is poured out. The plant seems to be subject 

 to dyspepsia, which is even fatal when it has indulged too 

 freely in the pleasures of the table, or rather of the leaf. 

 These observations, however, come from America, where, 

 in its native land, its habits may possibly be more intem- 

 perate than in this country. Mr. Darwin believes the 

 motor impulse to be transmitted in ZJ/i^Wi^^ as in Drosera, 

 through the parenchymatous tissue of the leaf. 



Aldrovanda, an aquatic, perfectly rootless genus, also 

 belonging to the order Droseraccce, presents phenomena 

 similar to those of Dioncea, possessing sensitive hairs 

 which cause the leaf to close, and glands which secrete a 

 digestive fluid and afterwards absorb the digested matter. 

 The order embraces, in addition, only three other genera, 

 Drosophyllum, Roridula, and Byblis, all of which are 

 provided with secreting glands, possessed, in all proba- 

 bility, of similar properties. 



When the painful rumour gained circulation, not many 

 months ago, that Pingjiictda must be added to the list of 

 predatory plants, it was received with even greater incre- 

 dulity than the stories about Drosera. The facts are, 

 however, as patent as in the plants already described- 



* Continued from p. 209. 



