302 DARWINIANA. 



North America, growing in bogs or low ground, so 

 that they cannot be supposed to need the water as such. 

 Indeed, they secrete a part if not all of it. The com- 

 monest species, and the only one at the North, which 

 ranges from Newfoundland to Florida, has a broad- 

 mouthed pitcher with an upright lid, into which rain 

 must needs fall more or less. The yellow Sarracenia, 

 with long tubular leaves, called "trumpets" in the 

 Southern States, has an arching or partly upright lid, 

 raised well above the orifice, so that some water may 

 rain in ; but a portion is certainly secreted there, and 

 may be seen bedewing the sides and collected at the 

 bottom before the mouth opens. In other species, the 

 orifice is so completely overarched as essentially to 

 prevent the access of water from without. In these 

 tubes, mainly in the water, flies and other insects ac- 

 cumulate, perish, and decompose. Flies thrown into 

 the open-mouthed tube of the yellow Sarracenia, even 

 when free from water, are unable to get out one 

 hardly sees why, except that they cannot fly directly 

 upward; and microscopic chevaux-de-frise of fine, 

 sharp-pointed bristles which line most of the interior, 

 pointing strictly downward, may be a more effectual 

 obstacle to crawling up the sides than one would think 

 possible. On the inside of the lid or hood of the pur- 

 ple Northern species, the bristles are much stronger ; 

 but an insect might escape by the front without en- 

 countering these. In this epecies, the pitchers, how- 

 ever, are BO well supplied with water that the insects 

 which somehow are most abundantly attracted thither 

 are effectually drowned, and the contents all summer 

 long are in the condition of a rich liquid manure. 



