556 LETTERS TO DARWIN AND OTHERS. [1867, 



TO WILLIAM M. CANBY. '' 



July 8, 1867. 



My dear Canbt, ... I am charmed with what you 

 say of Dionsea, can confirm some of it, and believe all 

 the rest. Never mind the anatomy of the leaf now — 

 little promise from that; but do go on with experi- 

 ments on feeding, and record them carefully, and pub- 

 lish when ready. 



I am going to send your letter to Darwin, who will 

 be delighted, and wiU probably suggest experiments. 

 He has an eminently suggestive mind. 



I suppose you know the slow way Drosera rotundi- 

 folia catches flies, doubtless for same purpose, though 

 it can absorb the juices only through its bristles. I 

 always thought it took in only the gases disengaged 

 by putrefaction. 



If you don't know the trick of Drosera, which you 

 should study, too, I wiU tell you, if you write to me at 

 Sauquoit, Oneida County, New York. 



Sauquoit, N. Y., July 17. 



I have here yours of 13th. 



If on leaf of Drosera rotundifolia, in good healthy 

 condition, you put a small fly — somewhat crippled 

 is surer — the sticky pellucid glands will hold him 

 fast. By degrees (I have never seen it under ten or 

 twelve hours at least) some of the bristles outside, 

 which have not touched the fly, will turn inward and 

 bring their sticky tip against the insect ; later still 

 others and more external ones turn in, and so the fly 

 is bound by many liliputian bands. As it putrefies, I 

 wonder if the leaf merely takes its chance of getting 

 some of the disengaged gases, or whether it reabsorbs 



' William M. Canby, of Wilmington, Delaware. 



