RIVER-SIDE FLOWERS. 371 



Mr. Darwin (" Insectivorous Plants," pp. 428 et seq.) 

 says of Utricularia vu/garis, the common Bladderwort : 

 " Living plants from Yorkshire were sent me by Dr. Hooker. 

 Five bladders containing prey of some kind were examined. 

 The first included five cypris, a large copepod, and a Diap- 

 tomous ; the second four cypris ; the third a single rather 

 large crustacean ; the fourth six crustaceans ; and the fifth 

 ten. My son examined the quadrifid processes in a bladder 

 containing the remains of two crustaceans, and found some 

 of them full of spherical or irregularly-shaped masses of 

 matter, which were observed to move and to coalesce. 

 These masses, therefore, consisted of protoplasm." Of 

 Utricularia minor, the Lesser Bladderwort a rare plant in 

 England, but frequently found in Scotland Darwin says : 

 " This rare species was sent to me from Cheshire. The 

 plants were collected in the middle of July, and the con- 

 tents of five bladders, which from their opacity seemed 

 full of prey, were examined. The first contained no less 

 than twenty-four minute fresh-water crustaceans, most of 

 them consisting of empty shells, or including only a few 

 drops of red oily matter ; the second contained twenty ; 

 the third fifteen ; the fourth ten, some of them being rather 

 larger than usual ; and the fifth, which seemed stuffed 

 quite full, containing only seven, but five of these were 

 of an unusually large size. The prey, therefore, judging 

 from these five bladders, consists exclusively of fresh-water 

 crustaceans, most of which appeared to be distinct species 

 from those found in the bladders of the former species." 



Mr. Darwin also quotes from Mrs. Treat, of New Jersey, 

 who had examined a number of bladders of a North 

 American species (Utricularia clandesiina), in which a vast 

 number of captured animals were found within the bladders, 

 some being crustaceans, but the greater number delicate, 

 elongated larvae, I suppose of Culicidae. On some stems 

 fully nine out of every ten bladders contained the larvae 

 or their remains ; the larvae showing signs of life from 

 twenty-four to thirty-six hours after being imprisoned, and 

 then perished. 



At page 438 he says : " Finally, as numerous minute 



