it; and this circumstance I do not understand, as the superphosphate of lime is acid.  I suppose that some superphosphate must have been formed by the acid of the secretion acting on the phosphate, but that it was all absorbed and injured the leaves; the large drops which hung from their edges being an abnormal and dropsical secretion.  Anyhow, it is manifest that the phosphate of lime is a most powerful stimulant.  Even small doses are more or less poisonous, probably on the same principle that raw meat and other nutritious substances, given in excess, kill the leaves.  Hence the conclusion, that the long continued inflection of the tentacles over fragments of bone, enamel, and dentine, is caused by the presence of phosphate of lime, and not of any included animal matter, is no doubt correct.

Gelatine.—­I used pure gelatine in thin sheets given [page 111] me by Prof.  Hoffmann.  For comparison, squares of the same size as those placed on the leaves were left close by on wet moss.  These soon swelled, but retained their angles for three days; after five days they formed rounded, softened masses, but even on the eighth day a trace of gelatine could still be detected.  Other squares were immersed in water, and these, though much swollen, retained their angles for six days.  Squares of 1/10 of an inch (2.54 mm.), just moistened with water, were placed on two leaves; and after two or three days nothing was left on them but some acid viscid fluid, which in this and other cases never showed any tendency to regelatinise; so that the secretion must act on the gelatine differently to what water does, and apparently in the same manner as gastric juice.* Four squares of the same size as before were then soaked for three days in water, and placed on large leaves; the gelatine was liquefied and rendered acid in two days, but did not excite much inflection.  The leaves began to re-expand after four or five days, much viscid fluid being left on their discs, as if but little had been absorbed.  One of these leaves, as soon as it re-expanded, caught a small fly, and after 24 hrs. was closely inflected, showing how much more potent than gelatine is the animal matter absorbed from an insect.  Some larger pieces of gelatine, soaked for five days in water, were next placed on three leaves, but these did not become much inflected until the third day; nor was the gelatine completely liquefied until the fourth day.  On this day one leaf began to re-expand; the second on the fifth; and third on the sixth.  These several facts

* Dr. Lauder Brunton, ‘Handbook for the Phys.  Laboratory,’ 1873, pp. 477, 487; Schiff, ‘Leons phys. de la Digestion,’ 1867, p. 249. [page 112]

prove that gelatine is far from acting energetically on Drosera.