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Show 31E> DARWINIAN A. stance far beyond the resources of the most skillful chemist; but in a foot-note he admits that "now the spectroscope has altogether beaten Drosera j for, according to Bunsen and Kirchhoff, probably less than the 2 0 0 0 h 0 0 0 of a grain of sodium can be thus detected." Finally, that this highly-sensitive and active living · organism absorbs; will not be doubted when it is proved to digest, that is, to dissolve otherwise insoluble animal matter by the aid of special secretions. That it does· this is now past doubting. In the first place, when the glands are excited they pour forth an increased amount of the ropy secretion. This occurs directly when a bit of meat is laid upon the central glands; and the influence which they transmit to the long-stalked marginal glands causes them, while in curving their tentacles, to secrete more copiously long before they have themselves touched anything. The primary fluid, secreted without excitation, does not of itself digest. • But the secretion under excitement changes in Nature and becomes acid. So, according to Schiff, mechanical irritation excites the glands of the stomach to secrete an acid. In both this acid appears to be necessary to, but of itself insufficient for, digestion. The requisite solvent, a kind of ferment called pepsin, which acts only in the presence of the acid, is poured forth by the glands of the stomach only after they have absorbed certain soluble nutritive substances of the food; th~n this pepsin promptly dissolves muscle, fibrine, coagulated albumen, cartilage, aud the like. Similarly it appears that Drosera-glands, after irritation by particles of glass, did not act upon ·,> .. INSECTIVOROUS ANJJ CLIMBING PLANTS. 31!) lit~le cubes of :;tlbumen. But when moistened with saliva, or replaced by bits of roast-meat or gelatine, or even cartilage, which supply some soluble peptone-matter to initiate the process, these substances are promptly acted upon, and dissolved or digested ; whence it is inferred that the analogy with the stomach holds good throughout, and that a ferment similar to pepsin is poured out under the stimulus of some soluble animal matter. But the direct evidence of this is furnished only by the related carnivorous plant, Dioncea, from which the secretions, poured out when digestion is about to begin, may be collec.ted in quantity sufficient for chemical examination. In short, the experiments • show "that there is a remarkable accordance in the power of digestion between the gastric juice of animals, with its pepsin and hydrochloric acid, and the secretion of Drosera, with its ferment and acid belonO'- o ing to the acetic series. We can, therefore, hardly doubt that the ferment in both oases is closely similar, if not identically the same. That a plant and an animal should pour forth the same, or nearly the same, complex secretion, adapted for the same purpose of digestion, is a new and wonderful fact in physiology." There are one or two other species of sundewone of them almost as common in Europe and North America as the ordinary round-leaved species-which act in the same way, e~cept that, having their leaves longer in proportion to their breadth, their sides never curl inward, but they are much disposed to aid the action of their tentacles by incurving the tip of the leaf, as if to grasp the morsel. There are many oth- |
