TO CHARLES DARWIN.
May 12, 1874.
... I sent to Hooker to forward to you two articles in the “Nation,” on Insectivorous Plants, written to reclaim your work from Bennett, who began to appropriate it, etc., etc.
It is already leading to discovery. A physician in Carolina, a good observer, already writes me that in S. variolaris, the best of Sarracenias, he thinks he finds the watery liquid anæsthetic (??) and the sweet secretion not. But he says there is a line of sweet, a trail, running from the sweet rim down the edge of the wing outside nearly to the ground, which lures up ants (with which Wyman tells me the pitchers are crowded), just like the train of Indian corn which hunters scatter along the ground to lure wild turkeys into the trap! Does not that beat all!
Also my articles here resulted in the discovery related in the paper inclosed. The take-off of Thomson’s germs from another planet is good.
June 16.
... The gratification I feel in learning (by yours of the 3d) that you are pleased must, I am sure, exceed any satisfaction of yours in regard to my subdued and quiet article in “Nature.”[94] Lockyer, to my great surprise, applied to me for it, and of course I could not refuse. I think it will generally be regarded by scientific people as just and moderate.
Odd that you should not have recognized my hand from the first in the “Insectivorous Plants,” written, in fact, to vindicate your rights. The papers called forth a second hoax, as elaborate as the first, and much better done. I have no idea who wrote them.
You must, meanwhile, have received the article in the “Nation,” reviewing Dr. Hodge’s “What is Darwinism?” You see what uphill work I have in making a theist of you, “of good and respectable standing.”
Do hurry up the book about Drosera, etc. My plants of Sarracenia variolaris, having lost their spring growth in transmission, have not yet made any that is satisfactory. So I begged Dr. Mellichamp, who had sent me leaves with gorge sanded over at the sweet-secretion part, to send some for the trail. He wrote me it was too late in the season; they were all drying up. But this morning, with the inclosed postal card, came several with the sand sticking fairly well to the glutinous line, and I send you one of them. I wish I could send you Mellichamp’s long letters, about the two sorts of larvæ, that appropriate, one the upper, one the lower part of the pitcher.