310 DION.ZA MUSCIPULA. Cuap. X11 
meat for eleven days, a third leaf for eight days, and 
a fourth (but this had been cracked and injured) for 
only six days. Bits of cheese, or casein, were placed 
at one end and albumen at the other end of three 
leaves; and the ends with the former opened after 
six, eight, and nine days, whilst the opposite ends 
opened a little later. None of the above bits of meat, 
albumen, &c., exceeded a cube of +4 of an inch 
(2:54 mm.) in size, and were sometimes smaller; yet 
these small portions sufficed to keep the leaves closed 
for many days. Dr. Canby informs me that leaves 
remain shut for a longer time over insects than over 
meat; and from what I have seen, I can well believe 
that this is the case, especially if the insects are 
large. 
In all the above cases, and in many others in which 
leaves remained closed for a long but unknown 
period over insects naturally caught, they were more 
or less torpid when they reopened. Generally they 
were so torpid during many succeeding days that no 
excitement of the filaments caused the least move- 
ment. In one instance, however, on the day after a 
leaf opened which had clasped a fly, it closed with ex- 
treme slowness when one of its filaments was touched ; 
and although no object was left enclosed, it was so 
torpid that it did not re-open for the second time 
until 44 hrs. had elapsed. In a second case, a leaf 
which had expanded aftef remaining closed for at 
least nine days over a fly, when greatly irritated, 
moved one alone of its two lobes, and retained this 
unusual position for the next two days. A third case 
offers the strongest exception which I have observed ; 
a leaf, after remaining clasped for an unknown time 
over a fly, opened, and when one of its filaments was 
touched. closed, though rather slowly. Dr. Canby. 
