'' TURNING THE TABLES.'' 269 



accompany muscular contraction and those which 

 are associated with the closing of the leaves of the 

 Venus' Fly-trap. 



The two groups of plants just described capture 

 their insect prey after two different methods, each of 

 which has been separately evolved as a vegetable 

 policy. We now approach a third — that adopted 

 by all those plants (belonging to several orders 

 widely separated, and also geographically isolated), 

 some of whose leaves have been structurally modi- 

 fied, not into fly-traps, but into pitchers. The very 

 device we see in shop -windows, of attracting the 

 hosts of house-flies, by means of a sweetened liquor 

 to enter glass vessels from which they cannot emerge, 

 but accumulate and die and seethe there, was adopted 

 by the North American and other " Pitcher-plants " 

 ages ago ! North America is especially distinguished 

 by the production of this sort of fly-trap, for we find 

 no fewer than eight species represented there, all of 

 which are marsh -loving, or bog -haunting plants. 

 The Sarracenias have been long noted for the remark- 

 able alteration in the shapes of their leaves. Some 

 of the " pitchers," formed by their edges growing to- 

 gether (in a way not uncommon as a " monstrosity " 

 in cultivated plants, such as the Cabbage (Fig. 97), 

 are three feet in height, as those of Sarracenia flava, 

 for instance. Most of the " pitchers " have lids or 

 covers, which do not fit close, but seem rather in- 

 tended to prevent the dust settling within, or the 



