QUEER FLOWERS. 185 



instances they are quite as beautifully colored as the largest and hand- 

 somest exotic orchids. 



The principle of Venus's fly-trap is somewhat different, though its 

 practice is equally nefarious. This curious marsh-plant, instead of 

 setting hocused bowls of liquid for its victims, like a Florentine of 

 the fourteenth century, lays a regular gin or snare for them, on the 

 same plan as a common snapping rat-trap. The end of the leaf is 

 divided into two folding halves by the midrib, and on each half are 

 three or five highly sensitive hairs. The moment one of these hairs is 

 touched by a fly, the two halves come together, inclosing the luckless 

 insect between them. As if on purpose to complete the resemblance 

 to a rat-trap, too, the edges of the leaf are formed of prickly, jagged 

 teeth, which fit in between one another when the gin shuts, and so 

 effectually cut off the insect's retreat. The plant then sucks up the 

 juices of the fly, and, as soon as it has fully digested them, the leaf 

 opens automatically once more, and resets the trap for another victim. 

 It is an interesting fact that this remarkable insectivore appears to be 

 still a new and struggling species, or else an old type on the very point 

 of extinction, for it is only found in a few bogs over a very small area 

 in the neighborhood of Wilmington, Southern California. 



Strongly contrasting with the sestheticism of the artistically minded 

 bees, who go in chiefly for peacock blues and Tyrian purples, as well 

 as with the frank Philistinism of the carrion-flies, who like good, solid, 

 meaty-looking red and brown flowers, is the ingenious secretiveness of 

 the ichneumon-flies, who chiefly patronize invisible green blossoms, 

 indistinguishable to a casual observer among the thick foliage in whose 

 midst they grow. Most insects are very casual observers : they require 

 a good sensible flaring patch of yellow or scarlet (like the posters of a 

 country circus) to attract their giddy attention. But the ichneumons 

 are sharp-eyed and highly discerning creatures, which have developed 

 a whole set of pale-green flowers, so inconspicuous as to escape the 

 notice of color-loving bees and butterflies, yet with a good supply of 

 easily accessible honey to reward their cunning visitors. This honey 

 the monopolist ichneumons of course keep strictly for their own use. 

 That large and very odd-looking English orchid, the tway-blade, ex- 

 tremely common in woods and shady places, though seldom observed 

 by the general public on account of its uniform greenness, is an excel- 

 lent example of these ichneumon-made blossoms. The whole spike 

 stands a foot and a half high, with numerous separate green flowers, 

 each about half an inch long, yet it is very little noticed save by regu- 

 lar plant-hunters, because its color makes it all but indistinguishable 

 among the tall grasses and sedges with whose blades it is closely inter- 

 mino-led. Yet, if it were only pink or purple, like most of the other 

 Eno-lish orchids, it would certainlv rank as one of the largest and hand- 

 somest among our native wild-flowers. 



In a few cases, the relation between the plant and the insect that 



