The Tachytes 



Midge remains. The winged Aphis also re- 

 mains, the Ant, the Mosquito and many an- 

 other of the smaller insects. What does the 

 plant do with its captures? Of what use 

 are these trophies of corpses hanging by a 

 leg or a wing? Does the vegetable bird- 

 limer, with its sticky rings, derive advantage 

 from these death-struggles? A Darwinian, 

 remembering the carnivorous plants, would 

 say yes. As for me, I don't believe a word 

 of it. The Oporto silene is ringed with 

 bands of gum. Why? I don't know. In- 

 sects are caught in these snares. Of what 

 use are they to the plant? Why, none at 

 all; and that's all about it. I leave to 

 others, bolder than myself, the fantastic idea 

 of taking these annular exudations for a di- 

 gestive fluid which will reduce the captured 

 Midges to soup and make them serve to 

 feed the Silene. Only I warn them that the 

 insects sticking to the plant do not dissolve 

 into broth, but shrivel, quite uselessly, in the 

 sun. 



Let us return to the Tachytes, who is also 

 a victim of the vegetable snare. With a 

 sudden flight, a huntress arrives, carrying her 

 drooping prey. She grazes the Silene's lime- 

 twigs too closely. Behold the Mantis caught 

 by the abdomen. For twenty minutes at 

 147 



