150 NEPENTHES. 



the watery tube, to crawl out again. Probably the air 

 evolved by these dead flies may be beneficial to vege- 

 tation, and, as far as the plant is concerned, its curious 

 construction may be designed to entrap them, while 

 the water is provided to tempt as well as to retain 

 them. The Sphex or Ichneumon^ an insect of prey, 

 stores them up unquestionably for the food of itself or 

 its progeny, probably depositing its eggs in their car- 

 cases, as others of the same tribe lay their eggs in 

 various caterpillars, which they sometimes bury after- 

 wards in the ground. Thus a double purpose is an- 

 swered ; nor is it the least curious circumstance of the 

 whole, that an Europaean insect should find out an 

 American plant in a hot-house, in order to fulfil that 

 purpose. 



If the above explanation of the Sarracenia be ad- 

 mitted, that of the Nepenthes will not be difficult. 

 Each leaf of this plant terminates in a sort of close- 

 shut tube, like a tankard, holding an ounce or two of 

 water, certainly secreted through the footstalk of the 

 leaf, whose spiral-coated vessels are uncommonly large 

 and numerous. The lid of this tube either opens spon- 

 taneously, or is easily lifted up by insects and small 

 worms, who are supposed to resort to these leaves in 

 search of a purer beverage than the surrounding swamps 

 afford. Rumphius, who has described and figured the 

 plant, says " various little worms and insects crawl into 

 the orifice, and die in the tube, except a certain small 

 Y shrimp, with a protuberant back, sometimes 



