to be dead. Do you suppose the odor of milk or meat, or of any good
food, would affect a plant like that? Animals shut up with alcohol die
in just the same way.

~24. A Drunken Plant.~--How many of you remember about a curious plant
that catches flies? Do you remember its name? What does the Venus's
fly-trap do with the flies after it catches them? Do you say that it
eats them? Really this is what it does, for it dissolves and absorbs
them. In other words, it digests them. This is just what our stomachs do
to the food we eat.

~25.~ A few years ago Mr. Darwin thought that he would see what effect
alcohol would have upon the digestion of a plant. So he put a
fly-catching plant in a jar with some alcohol for just five minutes. The
alcohol did not touch the plant, because the jar was only wet with the
alcohol on the inside. When he took the plant out, he found that it
could not catch flies, and that its digestion was spoiled so that it
could not even digest very tender bits of meat which were placed on its
leaves. The plant was drunk.

~26.~ Mr. Darwin tried a great many experiments with various poisons,
and found that the plants were affected in much the same way by ether
and chloroform, and also by nicotine, the poisonous oil of tobacco.
Sugar, milk, and other foods had no such effect. This does not look much
as though alcohol would help digestion; does it?

~27. Effects of Alcohol on Digestion.~--Dr. Roberts, a very eminent
English scientist, made many experiments, a few years ago, to ascertain
positively about the effect of alcohol upon digestion. He concluded that
alcohol, even in small doses, delays digestion. This is quite contrary