110 DROSERA ROTUNDIFOLIA. [Cbap. VL 



it was pure. It is a more remarkable fact that fibrin, which 

 belongs to the great class of Protcids," including albumen in 

 one of its sub-groups, does not excite the tentacles in a 

 greater degree, or keep them inflected for a longer time, 

 than does gelatine, or areolar tissue, or the fibrous basis of 

 bone. It is not known how long an animal would survive if 

 fed on fibrin alone, but Dr. Sanderson has no doubt longer 

 than on gelatine, and it would be hardly rash to predict, 

 judging from the effects of Drosera, that albumen would be 

 found more nutritious than fibrin. Globulin likewise be^ 

 longs to the Proteids, forming another sub-group, and this 

 substance, though containing some matter which excited 

 Drosera rather strongly, was hardly attacked by the secre- 

 tion, and was very little or very slowly attacked by gastric 

 juice. How far globulin would be nutritious to animals is not 

 known. We thus see how differently the above specified several 

 digestible substances act on Drosera; and we may infer, as 

 highly probable, that they would in like manner be nutritious 

 in very different degrees both to Drosera and to animals. 



The glands of Drosera absorb matter from living seeds, 

 which are injured or killed by the secretion. They likewise 

 absorb matter from pollen, and from fresh leaves; and this 

 is notoriously the case with the stomachs of vegetable-feeding 

 animals. Drosera is properly an insectivorous plant; but as 

 pollen cannot fail to be often blown on to the glands, as will 

 occasionally the seeds and leaves of surrounding plants, 

 Drosera is, to a certain extent, a vegetable-feeder. 



Finally the experiments recorded in this chapter show 

 us that there is a remarkable accordance in the power of 

 digestion between the gastric juice of animals with its pep- 

 sin and hydrochloric acid and the secretion of Drosera with 

 its ferment and acid belonging to the acetic series. We can 

 therefore hardly doubt that the ferment in both cases is 

 closely similar, if not identically the same. That a plant 

 and an animal should pour forth the same, or nearly the 

 same, complex secretion, adapted for the same purpose of di- 

 gestion, is a new and wonderful fact in physiology. But I 

 shall have to recur to this subject in the fifteenth chapter, in 

 my concluding remarks on the Droseraccm. 



"flfw tho rlnBBlflcntlon adoptpd ' Diet, of Clipmlstry,' Supple* 

 by Dr. Mlihaol Foster In Watts' ment 1872, p. 000. 



