PERSONAL OBSERVATION. 12<) 



FLOWER-TRAPS. 



Look at the tempting pea-blossoms of Desmpdiunt acuminatus, 

 or ' beggar's ticks.' A fly alights upon the small pink flower, when 

 lo ! it seems to explode, and the insect is greeted with a blinding 

 cloud of dust. This is a trap so delicately set, that, at the lightest 

 touch, the spring, consisting of a rigid column of filaments en- 

 closing the young pod, is released from the overlapping petals, and 

 the anthers shower the intruder with pollen. But this pollen- 

 shower is an innocent joke compared with the trap of Apocynum 

 androscemifolitim, or ' dog-bane.' Let a fly but thrust its tongue 

 into a flower, and the stamens instantly fasten on its tip, holding 

 the fly in a grip from which it seldom, if ever, escapes alive. 



THEODORE KELLOGG, De Pere, Wis. 



FROGS AT HOME IN "WINTER. 



Some of the readers of these reports may have been puzzled to 

 know where all the frogs came from last spring, almost before the 

 frost was out of the ground. They all seemed well, and able to 

 sing ; and in no way did they appear to have suffered from the 

 cold weather. I am often obliged, during the winter months, to 

 secure the assistance of a frog to make the fact of blood-circulation 

 plain to my students in zoology, and, as I do not always have a 

 supply of frogs on hand, I have many times gone to their winter 

 homes and taken them out of their comfortable quarters for a 

 course in the laboratory. A spring is selected,, which contains as 

 many stones, sticks, leaves, and as much mud, as possible, and a 

 regular attack upon the inhabitants is at once commenced. I 

 first dig a ditch to drain off the water, and then I remove carefully 

 the sticks and stones, watching all the time for signs of life under 

 each piece ; and afterward I dig down into the mud, usually with 

 my hands, to avoid hurting the animals which may be buried in it. 

 I have never failed to catch several frogs, cray-fish, newts, worms, 

 and sometimes minnows and smaller animals, fit for winter study. 

 I have always been repaid for my trouble by the enthusiasm with 

 which three or four students who volunteered to help me dig in 

 the mud after the specimens, and by the interest they take in 

 learning how a frog passes a cold winter in north-western Penn- 

 sylvania, at an altitude of twelve hundred feet above the sea, when 

 the temperature is often twenty degrees belo\v zero, and the ground 

 frozen from three to five feet deep. Of course large numbers of 

 these animals winter in swamps, though we cannot find them there, 

 but we may always be sure of our game if we choose a living 

 spring. J. H. MONTGOMERY. 



