LETTER 719. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, October 23rd [1873].

How good you have been about the plants; but indeed I did not intend you to write about Drosophyllum, though I shall be very glad to have a specimen. Experiments on other plants lead to fresh experiments. Neptunia is evidently a hopeless case. I shall be very glad of the other plants whenever they are ready. I constantly fear that I shall become to you a giant of bores.

I am delighted to hear that you are at work on Nepenthes, and I hope that you will have good luck. It is good news that the fluid is acid; you ought to collect a good lot and have the acid analysed. I hope that the work will give you as much pleasure as analogous work has me. (719/1. Hooker's work on Nepenthes is referred to in "Insectivorous Plants," page 97: see also his address at the Belfast meeting of the British Association, 1874.) I do not think any discovery gave me more pleasure than proving a true act of digestion in Drosera.