substance is then at Nature's disposal. We must set aside a great deal
of it for the ants and flies, who will help themselves in spite of us.
If any one has never seen a carcass rapidly disappearing under the
steady operations of the larvae of the flesh-fly, he has yet to learn
why some flies were made. The ants, too, carry it off in loads larger,
if not heavier, than themselves. But carcasses of animals may go to
decay, undisturbed by the ravages of these useful insects. That is, the
limited partnership of Oxygen, Hydrogen, & Co., under which they agreed
to carry on the operations of sheep, fox, or fish, having terminated
by the death of the animal, the partners make immediate use of their
liberty and go off in inorganic form in search of new engagements,
leaving sulphur, phosphorus, and the other subordinate elements of the
animal, to shift for themselves. They were in the employ of a sheep;
they will now carry on a man or an oak-tree, a colony of insects,
or something else. Under the form of carbonate of ammonia, the four
elements diffuse themselves through the air, or are absorbed by the
earth, and offer themselves at once to the roots and leaves of the
trees, as ready to go on with their vivifying operations as they were in
behalf of the animals. There are some plants which seem not to be left
to the chances of securing their nourishment from the carbonate of
ammonia that the air and the soil contain, but are contrived so as
to entrap living animals and hold them fast while they undergo
decomposition, so that all their gases may be absorbed by them alone.
Thus, "the little Sundew exudes a gluey secretion from the surface of
its leaves, which serves to attract and retain insects, the decay of
whose bodies seems to contribute to its existence." And the Dionaea,
or Venus's Fly-trap of the Southern States, has some leaves which fold
together upon any insect that alights upon their upper surface; and by
means of a row of long spines that fringes the leaves, they prevent his
escape. The more active the struggles of the captive, the closer grows