5Z PLAIN FACTS FOK OLD AND YOUNG 



quiet way that we do not observe them take their food. 

 Plants usually take in most of their food through theii' 

 roots. They also take in carbonic acid gas, a sort of 

 gaseous food, through their leaves. There is, however, 

 a queer plant which grows in North Carolina, the 

 leaves of which actually eat flies. More than this : the 

 plant not only eats flies, but it catches them. When a 

 fly touches a leaf, it shuts up and holds the fly a pris- 

 oner. After about a week, the leaf opens, and, strange 

 to say, the fly has disappeared. The leaf not only 

 catches the fly, but afterward secretes a fluid which 

 digests it, and after it is dissolved, it absorbs it. The 

 fly has actually been eaten. 



This curious behavior of the Venus Fly-Trap 

 affords the simplest illustration of digestion. 



Thirty Feet of Stomach.— A tiny creature that 

 lives in the warm waters of the tropics, has within its 

 body a little sac, which serves the triple purpose of 

 heart, lungs, and stomach. In many of the lower orders 

 of animal life, the heart and stomach are all one organ ; 

 but in man the three processes of blood-circulation, 

 air-breathing, and food-digestion are carried on by 

 three distinct organs. As commonly used, the term 

 stomach includes all the organs employed in digesting 

 food, of which the stomach proper is only one, and by 

 no means the most important. 



The digestive apparatus consists of a very crooked 

 tube some thirty feet in length, which extends from the 

 lips to the other extremity of the trunk. Along this 

 tube are ranged various organs which have more or 

 less to do with the process of digestion. 



A Live Mill.— At the upper end of this tube are 

 placed the teeth, which, with the jaws, constitute a mill, 

 where the food is ground so as to enable the other 



