o nourish the
plant. In fact, it would seem that the _Sarracenia_, like some
animals, can feed upon carrion and thrive upon it.

In instances in which experiments have been made with fresh, raw beef
or mutton, the meat has been covered in a few hours with the
secretions of the leaves, and the blood extracted from it. There is,
however, one difference between the digesting powers of the leaves
when exercised upon insects or upon meat. Even if the bodies of
insects have become putrid, the plant, as has already been stated, has
no difficulty in assimilating them; but as regards meat, it is only
when it is perfectly sweet that the secretions of the leaves will act
upon it.

The pitcher plant undoubtedly derives its principal nourishment from
the insects it eats. It, too--unlike most other carnivorous plants,
which, when the quantity of food with which they have to deal is in
excess of their powers of digestion, succumb to the effort and
die--appears to find it easy to devour any number of insects, small or
large, the operation being with it simply a question of time. Flies,
beetles, or even cockroaches, at the expiration of three or four days
at most, disappear, nothing being left of them save their wings and
other hard, parts of their bodies.

The _Sarracenia_ is, indeed, not only the most voracious of all known
species of carnivorous plants, but the least fastidious as to the
nature of the food upon which it feeds.--_W.C.M., Nature._

* * * * *

WHAT IS A PLANT?

Mr. Worsley-Benison has been discussing this question in a very
interesting way, and he says in conclusion that "_physiologically_ the
most distinctive feature of plant-life is the power to manufacture
protein from less complex bodies; that of animal-life, the absence of
such power." He finds that in form, in the presence of starch, of
chlorophyl, in power of locomotion, in the presence of circulatory
organs, of the body called nitrogen, in the functions of respiration
and sensation, there are no diagnostic characters. He finds, however,
"fairly constant and well-marked distinctions" in the presence of a
cellulose coat in the plant-cell, in digestion followed by absorption,
and in the power to manufacture protein.

The _morphological_ feature of plants is this cellulose coat; of
animals, its absence; the _physiological_ peculiarity of plants, this
_manufacturing power_; of animals, the want of it. But after all the