::::::::»v two BIRD- LOVERS IN MEXICO M^i^ 



ting out any would-be intruder. Thus the seeds are 

 allowed to ripen in safety ; and a useless, and indeed 

 harmful, competition with unfertilized blossoms is 

 avoided. 



Harmful self-fertilization within one flower is avoided 

 by the delay of a day or two in the oj)ening of the 

 anthers, the stigma meanwhile having abundant oppor- 

 tunity to be fertilized by the incoming insects, for two 

 or three midges are sometimes prisoners in the same 

 cell. 



But the flowers were not entirely free from molest- 

 ation, and occasionally a small troop of birds would 

 spend some time about, or even on, our tents, tearing 

 the blossoms apart and devouring the unfortunate 

 midges, sometimes even swallowing the whole blossom. 

 Black-capped Vireos occasionally swarmed through the 

 underbrush about us, and I once counted as many as 

 thirty Nashville Warblers in sight at one time. On 

 this vine we saw our tamest Townsend Warblers. They 

 iiad long puzzled us by kee})ing to the tops of the 

 highest trees, but here tliey came to our very tent-doors, 

 and joined the Nashvilles in their hunt for midges. It 

 was the fre(]uent visits of tliese birds which first drew 

 our attention to the curiously constructed l)lossoms, 

 and tiie first thought was that these were like Pitcher 

 Plants, carnivorous, entrapping the midges in order to 

 extract nutriment from their dead bodies. 



The study which we gave to these flowers of the 



- «4 ^208 ^ 



