THE SUNDEWS. 41 



tion at all. Because if it can be demonstrated that 

 they are capable of absorbing fluids, especially- 

 nitrogenous fluids, it would be easy to believe that 

 no exception would be made to the exclusion of 

 dissolved animal substances. 



All the experiments made in this direction are 

 exceedingly interesting and instructive, some of them 

 truly marvellous in their results. It would be some- 

 what tedious to narrate them in detail, in a popular 

 exposition of the reasons why certain plants have 

 been called " carnivorous plants," but it will be 

 necessary to allude to one or two. Solutions of 

 certain chemical substances, called salts of ammonia, 

 were applied to the leaves of living plants. Some of 

 these quickly discoloured the glands, but all caused 

 the characteristic inflection of the tentacles. Yet 

 these salts were applied in a very diluted state, for 

 less than one-millionth part of a grain, absorbed by 

 a gland of one of the exterior tentacles, was sufficient 

 to cause it to bend. In order that some idea might 

 be formed of what a million means, the following 

 illustration is given in a foot-note to Mr. Darwin's 

 book. "Take a narrow strip of paper, eighty-three 

 feet four inches in length, and stretch it along the 

 wall of a large hall ; then mark off at one end the 

 tenth of an inch. This tenth will represent a 

 hundred, and the entire strip a million." The experi- 

 ments alluded to were performed in three ways. 



