JULY 151 



Howbeit, it is just as bloodthirsty as its neighbour, the 

 sundew, though it contents itself with smaller game. 

 In its haunts, which are moist banks in moorland 

 regions, midges are sure to abound, and female midges, 

 when there is no tourist or full-blooded sportsman at 

 hand, are fain to stuff their little bellies with vegetable 

 juices. 1 The leaves of the butterwort seem to Madam 

 Midge to hold promise of great delicacy, for they are 

 covered with innumerable glands, 50,000 to the square 

 inch, it is said, secreting a viscous fluid. But no 

 sooner does the tiny creature alight on the glistening 

 surface than it is glued tight. The leaf curls slowly 

 round it, discharging upon the prey a solvent akin to 

 the gastric juice of mammals ; and next day, when the 

 leaf unrolls, nothing is left of Madam Midge but the 

 skin and wings. 



The sundew and butterwort partake of solid food, 

 and take their meals in the open. Any passer-by may 

 see them at dinner, just as the people of Paris were 

 privileged to gaze upon Louis xv. and his family at 

 table. But there is another little inhabitant of our 

 bogs for which you must hunt closer, for he dines in 

 private, under water in fact, so he requires a diet of 

 soup or water souchet. This is the strange Utricularia, 

 or bladderwort, which lays out along its finely- dissected 

 foliage a number of little bladders, the entrance to 

 which is fitted with a trap-door, carefully left open till 

 some water animalcule takes refuge within from the 

 pursuit of a larger creature. Then the trap closes with 



1 It is only the female midges that suck blood and vegetable juices. 

 The males take no sustenance during their flight. 



