SPIDER GOSSIP. 95 



good a fly-trap as is generally supposed. A certain patch of ivy 

 in our garden is literally covered with spiders' webs on warm 

 afternoons. Yet here the bluebottles delight to fly in and out 

 with just that triumphant hum which the nasty things always give 

 when you try to catch them and don't. I firmly believe that they 

 are playing a game of " catch'em who catch can." Very few 

 get caught. " Zoon ! zoon ! zoon 1 " says a fly in a peculiarly 

 vicious tone, and immediately there is a great hole in a web where 

 a bluebottle has dashed right through. " Poor little fly,"' indeed ! 

 It is rather, " Poor little spider ! " Only the careless get caught, 

 and no self-respecting, well-conducted blowfly falls a victim, so 

 that Epeira dtadema, in spite of her elegant snare, has hard work 

 to make a living. 



The Sarracenia pitchers at Kew have begun to decay owing 

 to the putrefying mass of insects they contain. In a note in the 

 Gardener's Chronicle fjan., 1888), Mr. Watson suggests that the 

 secretion found in the pitchers is not necessary to the destruction 

 of the insects caught in them, as the enormous mass of blue- 

 bottles caught in the pitchers at Kew could not have been 

 effected by the few drops of the secretion contained in each 

 pitcher. He also suggests that the pitchers, by entrapping such 

 immense numbers of insects, collect " a powerful stimulant to the 

 roots of the plants when, by the decay of the pitchers, the 

 contents are deposited on the ground directly above where the 

 roots find nourishment." 



We learn from the Botanical Gazette (U.S.A.), that C. Warns- 

 TORF, of Neuruppin, Germany, asks the directors of herbaria and 

 all bryologibts to aid him with material for study of the Sp/iag?ia- 

 cece of foreign countries. He promises to use submitted material 

 with the utmost care, and unless otherwise specified by the sender, 

 to return it after examination. He has in contemplation a Sphag- 

 7iologia Universa. As C. Warnstorf is already known as one of the 

 most thorough students of this perplexing group, we hope he will 

 meet with a generous response to his request. 



