Water Poachers. 185 



a subtle poacher, the true character of which has 

 only lately been detected. The bladderwort is a 

 fairly common plant, and no very special interest 

 attached to it ere its fish-eating propensities were 

 discovered. Its tiny vesicles were known to 

 contain air, and the only use of these so fai as 

 was known was to keep the plant afloat a belief, 

 be it remarked, all the more reasonable because 

 many aquatic plants actually have such air 

 receptacles fur that very purpose. The tiny 

 bladders attached to the leaves and leaf-stalks 

 are each furnished with a door, the whole acting 

 on the eel-trap principle, entrance being easy 

 but exit impossible. There is nothing very 

 formidable about the delicate green jaws of the 

 vegetable trap, only that any tiny water creature 

 that ventures in to look round out of mere 

 curiosity never by any chance emerges alive. 

 The first time that the bladder- wort was actually 

 caught at its fish-poaching proclivities, so to 

 speak, was by Professor Moseley, of Oxford. 

 He and a friend had. in a large glass bowl, a 

 plant of this species and also a number of young 

 roach just hatched. The murderous plant held 

 several of the tiny fish in its jaws ; and upon 

 an experiment being tried in a separate vessel, 

 it was found that a single plant had captured 

 no less than a dozen fish in the space of six 

 hours. One of these was caught by the head, 



