BAITED TRAPS. 97 



secure in- their deeply- toothed fore-legs. They use these legs 

 with wonderful force and rapidity, and it is said that a pair 

 of these insects lighting remind the observer of a duel with 

 sabres. 



THE BAITED TRAP. 



OUR space being valuable, we are not able to give many 

 examples of Baited Traps, whether in Art or Nature. 



The most familiar example of this trap is the common Mouse- 

 trap, the most ordinary form of which is shown at the right 

 hand of the illustration on page 96. In all the varieties of 

 these traps, whether for mice or rats, the prey is induced to 

 enter by means of some tempting food, and then is secured or 

 killed by the action of the trap. Sometimes these traps are 

 made of considerable size for catching large game, and in Africa 

 are employed in the capture of the leopard, in India for taking 

 both tigers and leopards, and in North America for killing 

 bears. 



We have already noticed one instance of a bait in the Angler- 

 fish, described in page 92, but in this case the bait serves 

 only for attraction, and the trap, or mouth, is not acted upon by 

 the prey. 



There are, however, many examples in the botanical world, 

 where the plant is directly acted upon by the creature which is 

 to be entrapped, such being known by the now familiar term 

 " Carnivorous Plants/' Of these there is a great variety, but 

 under this head I only figure two of them. 



CEPHALOTUS. 



The plant on the right hand is the Venus Fly-trap (Dionea 

 museipuld), which is common in the Carolinas. The leaves of 

 this plant are singularly irritable, and when a fly or other insect 



H 



