PLANTS FEEL AND CATTURE FOOD. 123 



light. The Actinia depressa suddenly collapsed when 

 direct sunlight was allowed to fall on it." I have re- 

 peatedly tried the experiment of over-shadowing the pool 

 in which the Actiniae were expanded, but never saw them re- 

 tract their tentacles in consequence. The reader will not sup- 

 pose that I mean to deny the sensitiveness of the Actiniae. 

 I am merely answering an argument which several writers 

 have repeated respecting the alarm felt by the ActhiiEe 

 when a cloud veils the sun, or a shadow affects them. 



But the Anemone must be an animal, you suggest, be- 

 cause it is seen to catch and swallow other animals. This, 

 however, is no proof Although the Anemone entraps its 

 prey, or anything else that may come in contact with its 

 tentacles, this is no j)roof of animality ; the sensitive 

 plant, known as the Flytrap of Venus (Dioncea muscipula), 

 has a precisely analogous power ; any insect, touching the 

 sensitive hairs on the surface of its leaf, instantly causes the 

 leaf to shut up and enclose the insect, as in a trap ; nor is 

 this all : a mucilaginous secretion acts like a gastric juice on 

 the captive, digests it, and renders it assimilable by the 

 plant, which thus feeds on the victim, as the Actinia feeds 

 on the Annelid or Crustacean it may entrap. Where, then, 

 is the difference ? Neither seeks its food : j^lace the food 

 within a line's breadth of the tentacles, or of the sensitive 

 hairs, and so long as actual contact is avoided, the grasping 

 of the food will not take place. But you object, perhaps, 

 that this mode of feeding is normal vdth the Actinia, 

 exceptional with tlie Flytrap. The plant, you say, is 

 nourished by the earth and air, the animal depends on what 



