to drip from the tips of the overhanging appendage. The principal
observations upon this pitcher-plant in its native habitat have been made
by Mrs. Austin, and only some of the earlier ones have thus far been
published by Mr. Canby. But we are assured that in this, as in the
Sarracenia variolaris, the sweet exudation extends at the proper season
from the orifice down the wing nearly to the ground, and that ants follow
this honeyed pathway to their destruction. Also, that the watery liquid in
the pitcher, which must be wholly a secretion, is much increased in
quantity after the capture of insects.

It cannot now well be doubted that the animal matter is utilized by the
plant in all these cases, although most probably only after maceration or
decomposition. In some of them even digestion, or at least the absorption
of undecomposed soluble animal juices, may be suspected; but there is no
proof of it. But, if pitchers of the Sarracenia family are only macerating
vessels, those of Nepenthes--the pitchers of the Indian Archipelago,
familiar in conservatories--seem to be stomachs. The investigations of the
President of the Royal Society, Dr. Hooker, although incomplete, wellnigh
demonstrate that these not only allure insects by a sweet secretion at the
rim and upon the lid of the cup, but also that their capture, or the
presence of other partly soluble animal matter, produces an increase and an
acidulation of the contained watery liquid, which thereupon becomes capable
of acting in the manner of that of Drosera and Dionaea, dissolving flesh,
albumen, and the like.

After all, there never was just ground for denying to vegetables the use of
animal food. The fungi are by far the most numerous family of plants, and
they all live upon organic matter, some upon dead and decomposing, some
upon living, some upon both; and the number of those that feed upon living
animals is large. Whether these carnivorous propensities of higher plants