The Bo^s of Etchowog 33 



slowly turn inward, holding their prey closely until it 

 is dead. 



Like the enticing honey of the Pitcher Plant, the 

 viscid fluid of the Sundew attracts the flies, and, once 

 alighted upon it, they become entangled and doomed 

 to certain death. After drawing the juices from their 

 victim or bits of steak, they relax and slowly regain 

 their normal positions. The glands of these leaves 

 send out drops of a clean, sticky fluid which glitter like 

 dew drops in the sunlight. The plant sends up a short 

 spike of insignificant, whitish-green, bud-like flowers, 

 which are said to open briefly one by one in their turn, 

 each morning in the sunshine, till the whole spike has 

 unfolded. Each flower turns brown and fades before 

 the successive bud unfolds, so that there is never more 

 than one full-grown flower to be seen at a time. This 

 is not the case with the flow^ers of the Pitcher Plant. I 

 found many crimson, ball-like buds sleeping tucked up 

 in their mossy beds. They would be in their prime in 

 a week or ten days. 



Here I discovered some fine specimens of the Pink 

 Moccasin- Flower, and I was just about to pluck one, 

 when behold — stretching at full length, basking in the 

 sunshine on one of those sphagnous stump mounds, 

 lay a snake, very near the coveted blossom. He may 

 have been black or he may have been checkered or 

 variegated and even charming and beautiful to the 

 snake-hunter, but to the orchid-hunter he was not a 

 prize worthy of a place in the vasculum. I did not 

 wait to study or designate him or count his diamonds, 



