SIDE-SADDLE FLOWERS. 8i 



ihey may eat as they march, until the mouth is 

 reached, where certain destruction awaits them."^ 



In order to determine the character of the sac- 

 charine exudation, and whether it possessed any 

 intoxicating properties. Dr. Millichamp collected 

 a large number of mature, and most sugary, leaves, 

 which he placed in vessels of water on reaching 

 home, and sat down before them for two hours 

 watching the result. Flies were soon attracted to 

 the leaves, but by no means greedily, and many were 

 entrapped, the buzzing of unfortunate prisoners being 

 incessant. Finding that he could not see the process 

 with the lids in their normal position, he turned back- 

 wards the greater part of the overhanging lid, and let 

 daylight into the prison, so that the whole region of 

 the sugar countries could be seen, and examined, 

 while the flies were busy at their food. 



"After turning back the lids of most of the leaves," 

 he says, "the flies would enter as before, a few alighting 

 on the honeyed border of the wing, and walking up- 

 ward — sipping as they went — to the mouth, and 

 entering at the cleft of the lower lip ; others would 

 alight on the top of the lid and then walk under the 

 roof, feeding there ; but most, it seemed to me, pre- 

 ferred to alight just at the commissure of the lips. 



^ Prof. Asa Gray in " New York Tribune ;" also " Gardener's 

 Chronicle," June 27, 1S74. 



G 



