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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



they are the very ones least likely to have ever got up the slippery 

 zone. Wet and exhausted, they fall again into the water, where they 

 soon drown and yield up the substances of the body to be absorbed 

 by fine hairs lining the bottom of the cup, and given over to the nourish- 

 ment of their passive captor. 



Some of the southern species of pitcher-plant have leaves standing 

 erect as much as two or three feet in height and furnished with a lid- 



Fig. 3. Leaves of the Purple Pitcher-plant. The one at the left is cut in half to show 

 the interior, with the downpointing hairs at the top, the slippery zone (betrayed by the high- 

 light), the absorbing hairs at the bottom, and the dark mass of insect remains. 



like covering, not indeed a trap-door to shut down over the mouth, but 

 serving to keep tbc rain from completely filling the pitchers and 

 breaking them down with its weight, a provision which the purple 

 pitcher-plant does not miss because of the prostrate position natural 

 to its leaves. In other species the leaf is furnished with a hood 

 arched over the moulli so as almost to conceal it, brightly colored with 

 yellow or red, or marked with translucent spots. In the Californian 

 pitcher-plant (DarKngtonia) , a rare and local species, the leaf is 

 hooded and the entrance small, hut accompanied by a hanging pro- 



