IS^ NEPENTHES. 



to be Stored with putrefying insects, whose scent is 

 perceptible as we pass the plant in a garden ; for the 

 margin of its leaves is beset with inverted hairs, which^ 

 like the wires of a mousetrap, render it very difficult for 

 any unfortunate fly, that has fallen into the watery tube, 

 to crawl out again. Probably the air evolved by these 

 dead flies may be beneficial to vegetation, and, as far as 

 the plant is concerned, its curious construction may be 

 ( designed to entrap them, while the water is provided to 

 tempt as well i^s to retain them. The Sphex or Ichneu- 

 mon, an insect of prey, stores them up unquestionably for 

 the food of itself or its progeny, probably depositing its 

 eggs in their carcases, as others of the sam© t|<ibe lay their 

 eggs in various caterpillars, which they sometimes bury 

 afterwards in the ground. Thus a double purpose is 

 answered ; nor is it the least curious circumstance of the 

 whole, that an European insect should find out an Amer- 

 ican plant in a hot-house, in order to fulfil that purpose. 

 If the above explanation of the Sarracena be admit- 

 ted, that of the Nepenthes will not be difficult. Each 

 leaf of this plant terminates in a sort of close-shut tube, 

 like a tankard, holding an ounce or two of water, cer- 

 tainly secreted through the footstalk of the leaf, whose 

 spiral-coated vessels are uncommonly large and nume- 

 rous. The lid of this tube either opens spontaneously, or 

 is easily lifted up by insects and small worms, who are 

 supposed to resort to these leaves in search of a p- rer 

 beverage than the surrounding swamps aff'oi;<J. Rum- 

 phlus, who has described and figured the plant, says 

 " various little worms and insects crawl into the orifice, 

 and die in the tube, except a certtiiu small squilla or 



