No. 6.] HOOKER — CARNIVOROUS HABITS OF PLANTS. 357 



thence to Paris. Thirty years hater Johnson copied this iti his 

 edition of Gerard's Herhal, hoping ''that some or other tluit 

 travel into foreign parts may find this elegant plant, and know 

 it hy this small expression, and bring it home with th 'm. so th;it 

 we may come to a perfecter knowledge there(jl'.'' A few years 

 afterwards this wish was gratified. John Tradescant the yonnger 

 found the plant in Virginia, and succeeded in bringing it iiomc 

 alive to England. It was also sent to Paris from Quebec by Dr. 

 Sarrazin, whose memory has been commemorated in the name of 

 the genus, by Tourneforc. 



The first fact which was observed Jtbout the pitchers was. th it 

 when they grew they contained water. But the next fact whicii 

 was recorded about them was curiously mythical. Periiips 

 Morrison, who is responsible for it. had no favourable oppor- 

 tnnites of studying them, for he declares them to be what is by 

 no means really the case, intolerant of cultivation (^rrspucre cut- 

 turam videntiir^. 



He speaks of the lid, which in all the species is tolerably 

 rigidly fixed, as being furnished, by a special act of providence, 

 with a hinge. This idea was adopted bv Linnajus, and some- 

 what amplified by succeeding writers, who declared that in dry 

 weather the lid closed over the mouth, and checked the loss of 

 water by evaporation. Catesby, in his fine work on the Natural 

 History of Carolina, supposed that these water-receptacles might 

 " serve as an asylum or secure retreat for numerous insects, from 

 frogs and other animals which feed on them ;" — and others fol- 

 lowed Linnaeus in regarding the pitchers as reservoirs for birds 

 and other animals, more especially in times of drought ; '■' prctbct 

 aquam sltimtibus aviculis." 



The superficial teleology of the last century was e isily satis- 

 fied without looking far for explanations, but it is just worth 

 while pausing for a moment to observe that, although Liaujcus 

 had no materials for m.iking any real investigation as to che pur- 

 jjose of the pitchers of Sarraceuias, he very sagaciously antici- 

 pated the modern views as to their affinities. They are now re- 

 garded as very near allies of water-lilies — precisely tiie position 

 which Linnjxius assigned to them in his fragmentary attempt at 

 a true natural classification. And besides this, he also suggested 

 the analogy, wiiich, improbable as it may seem at first sight, has 

 been worked out in det-iil by Baillon (in apparent ignoranct* of 

 Linnaius' writings) between tiic leaves ol' 8arracenia and water- 

 lilies. 



