We are naturally led to inquire what is the use of this movement which lasts for so short a time? If very small objects, such as fibres of meat, or moderately small objects, such as little flies or cabbage-seeds, are placed close to the margin, they are either completely or partially embraced by it. The glands of the overlapping margin are thus brought into contact with such objects and pour forth their secretion, afterwards absorbing the digested matter. But as the incurvation lasts for so short a time, any such benefit can be of only slight importance, yet perhaps greater than at first appears. The plant lives in humid districts, and the insects which adhere to all parts of the leaf are washed by every heavy shower of rain into the narrow channel formed by the naturally incurved edges. For instance, my friend in North Wales placed several insects on some leaves, and two days afterwards (there having been heavy rain in the interval) found some of them quite washed away, and many others safely tucked under the now closely inflected margins, the glands of which all round the insects were no doubt secreting. We can thus, also, understand how it is that so many insects, and fragments of insects, are generally found lying within the incurved margins of the leaves. The incurvation of the margin, due to the presence of an exciting object, must be serviceable in another [page 379] and probably more important way. We have seen that when large bits of meat, or of sponge soaked in the juice of meat, were placed on a leaf, the margin was not able to embrace them, but, as it became incurved, pushed them very slowly towards the middle of the leaf, to a distance from the outside of fully .1 of an inch (2.54 mm.), that is, across between one-third and one-fourth of the space between the edge and midrib. Any object, such as a moderately sized insect, would thus be brought slowly into contact with a far larger number of glands, inducing much more secretion and absorption, than would otherwise have been the case. That this would be highly serviceable to the plant, we may infer from the fact that Drosera has acquired highly developed powers of movement, merely for the sake of bringing all its glands into contact with captured insects. So again, after a leaf of Dionaea has caught an insect, the slow pressing together of the two lobes serves merely to bring the glands on both sides into contact with it, causing also the secretion charged with animal matter to spread by capillary attraction over the whole surface. In the case of Pinguicula, as soon as an insect has been pushed for some little distance towards the midrib, immediate re-expansion would be beneficial, as the margins could not capture fresh prey until they were unfolded. The service rendered by this pushing action, as well as that from the marginal glands being brought into contact for a short time with the upper surfaces of minute captured insects, may perhaps account for the peculiar movements of the