I Pitcher Plants ii 



stretch of technical language) are adapted to life in such 

 dangerous conditions. The moth has long spurs upon its 

 tibiae (second leg joints), which cross many of the hairs as 

 it walks, and so prevent its legs from sinking among them ; 

 while its larva, destitute of this snow-shoe arrangement, 

 spin their silken strands over the tips of the detentive 

 hairs, and so keep out of danger. The larvae of the blow- 

 fly, on the other hand, have peculiarly long claws and 

 large cushions on the last tarsal joints, and so grip down 

 through the hairs and hook themselves firmly into the very 

 tissue of the trumpet-leaf itself 



The question naturally arose — are not these treacherous 

 plants victimising the very insects which fertilise them ? 

 But this seems little or not at all to be the case ; for 

 5. variolaris, at least, our good observer Dr. Mellichamp 

 has shown that fertilisation is effected by the " melancholy 

 chafer" [Euphoria melaJicholica\ nor has he ever beheld 

 the moth Xaiithoptera so act. So far, at any rate, it seems 

 we have quite distinct and separate inter -adaptations of 

 flower and leaf, and to distinct and separate insects. 



Minute Structure of the Pitcher. — Before leaving this 

 subject one may have a useful first lesson in "vegetable 

 histology," since the tissues here are not only peculiarly in- 

 teresting and intelligible, but very easily handled. Opening 

 the pitcher with one's penknife it is easy to make out 

 with the naked eye, and clear with the pocket lens, the 

 essential character of these surfaces, attractive, conductive, 

 and detentive respectively ; but to see the exquisite beauty 

 and perfection of their details we must multiply lens above 

 lens, so developing our simple microscope, noting, of 

 course, that we are passing to no separate " science of 

 microscopy," but that we are merely adding in front of our 

 own eye lens first one artificial lens, and then more as we 

 need them. How these lenses need to be held together^ 



