132 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



and hem it in securely. There it is gradually dissolved 

 and digested, its juices going to supply the plant with 

 materials for the production of its flower and seed. 



The butterwort is a less savagely insectivorous creature 

 than the sundew ; yet its taste for fresh meat is almost 

 as indubitable as that of its cruel red-leaved neighbor. 

 Its foliage is pale hoary green, covered with little crys- 

 talline-looking white dots, which produce an abundant 

 viscid fluid, easily drawn out into long threads by the 

 touch of a finger. When an insect lights upon it, his 

 legs are clogged by the fluid ; and the edge of the leaf 

 then curls slowly inward, so as to push him into the 

 centre of the blade, where the digestive power seems to 

 be strongest. But what is most interesting of all about 

 thd butterwort is the fact that it is peculiarly adapted for 

 attracting insects from two distinct points of view for 

 food, and as fertilizers. While it lays itself out to catch 

 and eat miscellaneous small flies with its gummy leaves, 

 it also lays itself out to allure bees with its comparatively 

 large and handsome blue mask-shaped flowers. It has a 

 deep spur behind each blossom, which secretes a big 

 drop of clear honey ; while its irregular shape is fitted 

 neatly to the bee ? s body, its stamens are placed in the 

 right position to brush against his back as he enters the 

 tube, and its lip is covered with long club-shaped hairs 

 among which his bristly legs can get a firm and conven- 

 ient foothold. It is strange thus to see one and the same 

 plant bidding for the attentions of one insect race by 

 honest allurements of honey and color, while at the same 

 time it spreads a deadly trap for a second race with sticky 

 glands and dissolvent acid secretions. 



Why should these two totally distinct plants, living 

 together in precisely similar circumstances, have acquired 

 this curious and ucannny habit of catching and devouring 



