A GARDEN DIARY 183 



often happens that one may see flies and other 

 small insects lying partially dried up and useless 

 in the centre of the leaf. In one respect this 

 viscidity appears at first sight to be inconvenient, 

 the entire surface of the leaf being often covered 

 with twigs, leaves, particles of boggy fibre, and 

 such-like matters, which the plant has apparently 

 no power of getting rid of. In the end this may 

 prove however to be an advantage rather than 

 otherwise, since it has been ascertained that the 

 Pinguiculas feed, not alone on animal, but also 

 on vegetable substances ; the extreme stickiness 

 of the leaves causes them moreover to act as a 

 chevaux -de - frise, thus hindering small but 

 industrious ants from making their way up the 

 flower-stalks to the corolla. 



Yet another little group of bog - plants, 

 namely, the Utricularias, or bladderworts, are 

 meat eaters. In their case the fly-catching 

 apparatus is situated, not in the leaves, but in 

 certain small attached air - bladders, which are 

 constructed almost exactly upon the principle of 

 an eel -trap, and which, if opened, may generally 

 be found to contain flies. Thus we see how 

 discovery may be anticipated, and how one of 

 man's most boasted attributes that of the 

 Destroyer may be wrested from him by a 

 miserable little green bog -weed! Before the 

 first Celtic hunter flung spear at wolf or stag ; 

 before the Firbolgs, or the Tuatha-da-Daanans 



