3t)2 tliE CANADIAN NAi'URALrST. [Vol. vil. 



so differently eonstrueted as those o[ ^S. Jiaua, jjiujjurcd, and 

 vorloJaris, and presenting such differences in their tissues, should 

 act similarly. The fact that insects normally decompose in the 

 fluid of all, would suggest the probability that they all feed on 

 the products of decomposition ; but as yet we are absolutely 

 ignorant whether the glands within the pitchers are secretive, or 

 absorptive, or both; if secretive, whether they secrete water or 

 a solvent; and if absorptive, whether they absorb animal matter 

 or the products of decomposition 



It is quite likely, that just as the saccharine exudation only 

 makes its appearance during one particular period in the life of 

 the pitcher, so the digestive functions may also be only of short 

 duration. We should be prepared for this from the case of the 

 Dionaea, the leaves of which cease after a time to be fit for ab- 

 sorption, and become less sensitive. It is quite certain that the 

 insects which go on accumulating in the pitchers of Sarracenias 

 must be far in excess of its needs for any legitimate process of 

 digestion. They decompose: and various insects, too wary to 

 be entrapped themselves, seem habitually to drop their eggs into 

 the open mouth of the pitchers, to take advantage of the accumu- 

 lation of food. The old pitchers are consequently found to con- 

 tain living larvae and maggots, a sufficient proof that the original 

 properties of the fluid which they secreted must have become 

 exhausted ; and Barton tells us that various insectivorous birds 

 slit open the pitchers with their beaks to get at the contents. 

 This was probably the origin of Linnaeus' statement that the 

 pitchers supplied birds with water. 



The pitchers finally decay, and part, at any rate, of their con- 

 tents must supply some nutriment to the plant by fertilising the 

 srround in which it grows. 



Darlingtonia. — I cannot take leave of Sarracenia without a 

 short notice of its near ally, Darlingtonia, a still more wonderful 

 plant, an outlier of Sarracenia in geographical distribution, being 

 found at an elevation of 5,000 ft. on the Sierra Nevada of Cali- 

 fornia, far west of any locality inhabited by Sarracenia. It has 

 pitchers of two forms ; one, peculiar to the infant state of the 

 plant, consists of narrow, somewhat twisted, trumpet-shaped 

 tubes, with very oblique open mouths, the dorsal lip of which is 

 drawn out into a long, slender, arching, scarlet hood, that hardly 

 closes the mouth. The slight twist in the tube causes these 

 mouths to point in various directions, and they entrap very small 



