SARRACENIA. 149 



purpose, while the orifice of the tubular part just 

 below is contracted to restrain evaporation. Linnagus 

 conceived this plant to be allied in constitution to 

 Nymphcea, and consequently to require a more than 

 ordinary supply of water, which its leaves were calcu- 

 lated to catch and to retain, so as to enable it to live 

 without being immersed in a river or pond. But the 

 consideration of some other species renders this hypo- 

 thesis very doubtful. S.flava, t. 780, and more espe- 

 cially S. adunca, Exot. Bot. t. 53, are so constructed 

 that rain is nearly excluded from the hollow of their 

 leaves, and yet that part contains water, which seems 

 to be secreted by the base of each leaf. What then is 

 the purpose of this unusual contrivance ? An observa- 

 tion communicated to me in 1805, in the botanic 

 garden at Liverpool, seems to unravel the mystery. 

 An insect of the Sphex or Ichneumon kind, as far as I 

 could learn from description, was seen by one of the 

 gardeners to drag several large flies to the Sarracenla 

 adunca, and, with some difficulty forcing them under 

 the lid or cover of its leaf, to deposit them in the tu- 

 bular part, which was half filled with water. All the 

 leaves, on being examined, were found crammed with 

 dead or drowning flies. The S. purpurea is usually 

 observed to be stored with putrefying insects, whose 

 scent is perceptible as \ve pass the plant in a garden ; 

 for the margin of its leaves is beset with inverted hairs, 

 which, like the wires of a mouse-trap, render it very 

 difficult for any unfortunate fly, that has fallen into 



