1876.] New Phase of Plant-Life. 7 
since both adl so differently on the fresh casein of milk and 
on the dry matter prepared by chemists. 
Cheese was digested only to a slight extent, and proved 
injurious to the leaves. Legumen appears to be digested 
and absorbed. The pollen-granules of plants are penetrated 
by the secretion, and the contents partially digested. Gluten 
is partially adled on, but — like raw meat, phosphate of 
lime, or even albumen in large pieces — it is too powerful a 
stimulant. But gluten freed from starch, by steeping in 
very dilute hydrochloric acid, was readily digested, and was 
not found to injure the glands of the leaves in any marked 
degree. 
Among the substances not adled upon by the secretion of 
Drosera are hair, bits of finger-nails, quills of feathers, 
mucin, urea, chitin (the chief constituent of the outward 
skeleton of inserts), chlorophyll, cellulose, fats, oils, starch, 
sugar, gum, dilute alcohol, and vegetable extracts free from 
albumen. Here is further proof of the identity of the 
Droserce ferment with gastric juice, since none of the sub- 
stances just enumerated — as far as is known — are digested 
by the gastric juice of animals, though certain of them are 
adfed upon by the other secretions of the intestinal canal. 
The Drosera may be termed an omnivorous plant; for 
though its principal food, doubtless, consists of insedfs, it is 
also capable of deriving nourishment from the pollen of 
plants, which, doubtless is occasionally deposited by the 
wind upon its leaves. Even seeds, though not absolutely 
dissolved, are attacked by the secretion, and some principle 
is doubtless extradted out of them. It is at least certain 
that seeds placed upon the leaves of the Drosera produce 
inflection of the tentacles, and are subsequently found to 
have been injured. Of seven cabbage seeds thus treated 
three only were found capable of germinating, and of the 
three seedlings one speedily perished. Very similar results 
were obtained with the seeds of radish and cress. On the 
other hand, seeds of black mustard, celery, caraway, and 
wheat were found not to excite the plant more than inor- 
ganic objedts. But the identity, or at least the close simi- 
larity, existing between the gastric juice of animals and the 
secretion of the Drosera , — two complex liquids subserving 
the same fundtion, though elaborated by organisms so 
remote from each other, — though it may justly be styled 
“ a new and wonderful faCt in physiology,” is not by any 
means the only marvel which the study of the Drosera 
reveals. We have already seen that a drop of water, falling 
upon the leaves of the plant, entirely fails in causing any 
