SIDE-SADDLE FLOWERS. 73 



tube receives the rain-water in more or less abundance. 

 In the other kind the mouth of the tube is closed 

 with a lid, and into these the rain can hardly, if ever, 

 find ingress.^ 



As long ago as the year 1815 the fly-catching 

 propensity of these plants was observed and com- 

 mented upon, in a communication to the President of 

 the Linnaean Society. Many of the assertions then 

 made have since been verified ; although at the time 

 they excited but little notice, and perhaps did not 

 receive implicit credence. "If," says the writer, "in 

 the months of May, June, or July, when the leaves of 

 these plants perform their extraordinary functions in 

 the greatest perfection,^ some of them should be 

 removed to a house and fixed in an erect position, it 

 will soon be perceived that flies are attracted by 

 them. These insects immediately approach the fauces 

 of the leaves, and leaning over their edges appear to 

 sip with eagerness something from their internal 

 surface. In this position they linger, but, at length 

 allured, as it would seem by the pleasures of taste, 

 they enter the tubes. The fly which has thus changed 

 its situation will be seen to stand unsteadily, it totters 

 for a few seconds, slips and falls to the bottom of the 



* " Gardener's Chronicle," August 29th, 1874, p, 260. 

 ^ These observations relate chiefly to one species, Sarracenici 

 variolaris. 



