292 DARWINIANA. 



death of the captive, although it opened very soon 

 when nothing was caught, or when the irritation was 

 caused by a bit of straw, or any such substance. It 

 was Linnaeus who originated the contrary and errone- 

 ous statement, which has long prevailed in the books, 

 that the trap reopened when the fatigued captive 

 became quiet, and let it go; as if the plant caught 

 flies in mere play and pastime ! Linnaeus also omitted 

 all allusion to a secreted liquid which was justifiable, 

 as Ellis does not state that he had actually seen any ; 

 and, if he did see it, quite mistook its use, supposing 

 it to be, like the nectar of flowers, a lure for insects, 

 a bait for the trap. Whereas, in fact, the lure, if 

 there be any, must be an odor (although nothing is 

 perceptible to the human olfactories) ; for the liquid 

 secreted by the glands never appears until the trap 

 has closed upon some insect, and held it at least for 

 some hours a prisoner. Within twenty-four or forty- 

 eight hours this glairy liquid is abundant, bathing 

 and macerating the body of the perished insect. Its 

 analogue is not the nectar of flowers, but the saliva 

 or the gastric juice ! 



The observations which compel such an inference 

 are recent, and the substance of them may be briefly 

 stated. The late Kev. Dr. M. A. Curtis (by whose 

 death, two years ago, we lost one of our best botan- 

 ists, and the master in his especial line, mycology), 

 forty, years and more ago resided at Wilmington, 

 North Carolina, in the midst of the only district to 

 wliich the Dionaea is native ; and he published, in 

 1834, in the first volume of the " Journal of the Bos- 

 ton Society of Natural History," by far the best ac- 



