272 SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS, 



ally slip, as it appears to me, upon this exquisitely 

 soft and velvety declining substance. The nectar is 

 not exuded or smeared over the whole of this surface, 

 but seems disposed in separate little drops. I have 

 seen them regain their foothold after slipping, and 

 continue to sip, but always moving slowly and with 

 apparent caution, as if aware that they were treading 

 on dangerous ground. After sipping their fill they 

 frequently remain motionless, as if satiated with 

 delight, and, in the usual self-congratulatory manner 

 of flies, proceed to rub their legs together, but in 

 reality, I suppose, to clean them. It is then they 

 betake themselves to flight, strike themselves against 

 the opposite sides of the prison-house, either upwards 

 or dov/nwards, generally the former. Obtaining no 

 perch or foothold, they rebound off from this velvety, 

 microscopic cJievaiix de frise, which lines the inner 

 surface still lower, until by a series of zigzag, but 

 generally downward falling flights, they finally reach 

 the coarser and more bristly pubescence of the lower 

 chamber, where, entangled somewhat, they struggle 

 frantically (but by no means drunk or stupified), and 

 eventually slide into the pool of death, where, once 

 becoming slimed and saturated with these Lethean 

 waters, they cease from their labours. After con- 

 tinued asphyxia they die, and after maceration they 

 add to the vigour and sustenance of the plant. 

 This seems to be the true use of the limpid fluid, 

 for it does not seem to be at all necessary to the 



