Lastly, bits of meat were placed on some glands; these were examined after 23 hrs., as were others, which had apparently not long before caught minute flies; but they did not present any [page 348] difference from the glands of other hairs.  Perhaps there may not have been time enough for absorption.  I think so as some glands, on which dead flies had evidently long lain, were of a pale dirty purple colour or even almost colourless, and the granular matter within them presented an unusual and somewhat peculiar appearance.  That these glands had absorbed animal matter from the flies, probably by exosmose into the viscid secretion, we may infer, not only from their changed colour, but because, when placed in a solution of carbonate of ammonia, some of the cells in their pedicels become filled with granular matter; whereas the cells of other hairs, which had not caught flies, after being treated with the same solution for the same length of time, contained only a small quantity of granular matter.  But more evidence is necessary before we fully admit that the glands of this saxifrage can absorb, even with ample time allowed, animal matter from the minute insects which they occasionally and accidentally capture.

Saxifraga rotundifolia (?).—­The hairs on the flower-stems of this species are longer than those just described, and bear pale brown glands.  Many were examined, and the cells of the pedicels were quite transparent.  A bent stem was immersed for 30 m. in a solution of one part of carbonate of ammonia to 109 of water, and two or three of the uppermost cells in the pedicels now contained granular or aggregated matter; the glands having become of a bright yellowish-green.  The glands of this species therefore absorb the carbonate much more quickly than do those of Saxifraga umbrosa, and the upper cells of the pedicels are likewise affected much more quickly.  Pieces of the stem were cut off and immersed in the same solution; and now the process of aggregation travelled up the hairs in a reversed direction; the cells close to the cut surfaces being first affected.

Primula sinensis.—­The flower-stems, the upper and lower surfaces of the leaves and their footstalks, are all clothed with a multitude of longer and shorter hairs.  The pedicels of the longer hairs are divided by transverse partitions into eight or nine cells.  The enlarged terminal cell is globular, forming a gland which secretes a variable amount of thick, slightly viscid, not acid, brownish-yellow matter.

A piece of a young flower-stem was first immersed in distilled water for 2 hrs. 30 m., and the glandular hairs were not at all affected.  Another piece, bearing twenty-five short and nine long hairs, was carefully examined.  The glands of the latter contained no solid or semi-solid matter; and those of only two [page 349] of the twenty-five short hairs contained some globules.  This piece was then immersed for 2 hrs. in a solution of one part of carbonate of ammonia