304 DARWINIANA. 



a life of remarkable promise, the latter touchingly 

 alludes in the preface to his second volume sent to 

 Sir James Edward Smith an account of his observa- 

 tions upon this subject, made in 1810 and the follow- 

 ing years. This was read to the Linnoean Society in 

 1815, and published in the twelfth volume of its 

 " Transactions." From this forgotten paper (to which 

 attention has lately been recalled) we cull the follow- 

 ing extracts, premising that the observations mostly 

 relate to a third species, Sarracenia adunca, alias 

 variolaris, which is said to be the most efficient fly- 

 catcher of the kind : 



" If, in the months of May, June, or July, when the leaves 

 of those plants perform their extraordinary functions in the 

 greatest perfection, some of them be removed to a house and 

 fixed in an erect position, it will soon be perceived that flies are 

 attracted by them. These insects immediately approach the 

 fauces of the leaves, and, leaning over their edges, appear to sip 

 with eagerness something from their internal surfaces. In this 

 position they linger; but at length, allured as it would seem by 

 the pleasure of taste, they enter the tubes. The fly which has 

 thus changed its situation will be seen to stand unsteadily ; it 

 totters for a few seconds, slips, and falls to the bottom of the 

 tube, where it is either drowned or attempts in vain to ascend 

 against the points of the hairs. The fly seldom takes wing in 

 its fall and escapes. ... In a house much infested with flies, 

 this entrapment goes on so rapidly that a tube is filled in a few 

 hours, and it becomes necessary to add water, the natural 

 quantity being insufficient to drown the imprisoned insects. 

 The leaves of S. adunca and rubra [a fourth species] might well 

 be employed as fly-catchers; indeed, I am credibly informed 

 they are in some neighborhoods. The leaves of the S.Jtara 

 [the species to which our foregoing remarks mainly relate], al- 

 though they are very capacious, and often grow to the height of 



