142 From Matter to Man. 



ilative power. In other words, not being able to 

 digest their food raw, they seek it cooked. They are 

 thus the vagrants or tramps of vegetal existence, 

 with no fixed home, and preferring stealing to work- 

 ing. Sometimes, however, they entail on themselves 

 retributive justice, for not infrequently the vampires 

 ensure their own death by exhausting their food 

 supply in sucking out the life-blood of their victims. 



(7) Insectivorous Plants. — People are now familiar 

 with the story of the sun-dew and its allies : the 

 highest class of vegetals from an evolutionary point 

 of view, because they perform functions akin to those 

 of animals. The transition from the vegetal, which 

 only absorbs inorganic materials through its root and 

 leaf-cells, to the sun-dew which bolts its food whole, 

 is, however, by no means sudden. A gradual taste 

 for flesh develops itself far down in the scale of plant 

 life, but it only attains its climax in the real vegetal 

 carnivora. The complexity of mechanism, too, which 

 culminates in the sudden closure of the Venus's fly- 

 trap at the slightest touch, has also its source in a 

 lower grade. 



The power of digesting solid matter commences 

 with " London pride " {saxifrages), primula and pelar- 

 gonium. These plants have gradually evolved ab- 

 sorbent glandular hairs upon their stems and leaves 

 which possess the property of rapidly absorbing animal 

 matter. Nextly, the butterwort {pinguicula) secretes 

 a viscid fluid on its hairy leaves, and digests dead 

 matter dropped on them by the wind or otherwise. 



