DARWIN'S INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 211 



the pitcher of Sarraceniajlava, by Mr. B. F. Grady, of Clin- 

 ton, North Carolina (in the article by an oversight called 

 " Mr. Hill "), which effectively lures flies to their destruction. 

 This statement, made in a letter, had been for several months 

 in our hands, awaiting the opportunity of confirmation, when 

 an allusion to the same thing appeared in the English edition 

 of LeMaout and Decaisne's System of Botany, without refer- 

 ence to any source, and on inquiry we learned that the author- 

 ity for the statement was forgotten. But early in the follow- 

 ing year, when the monograph of the order appeared in the 

 last volume of De Candolle's " Prodromus," a reference was 

 found to a paper by Dr. Macbride in the Transactions of the 

 Linnaean Society. His observations (made upon S. vario- 

 lar is^), it appears, were communicated to Sir J. E. Smith, 

 read before the Linnaean Society in 1815, and published soon 

 after. They are referred to by his surviving friend and 

 associate, Eliott, in his well-known w r ork, and therefore need 

 not have gone to oblivion, or needed rediscovery here in our 

 days by Mr. Grady and Dr. Mellichamp, the latter greatly 

 extending our knowledge of the subject. Probably the main 

 facts were all along popularly known in the regions these 

 species affect, and where their use as fly-traps is almost im- 

 memorial. But the gist of these remarks is, that a colleague 

 has just called our attention to an earlier publication than 

 that of Dr. Macbride, namely, an article on " Certain Vege- 

 table Muscicapse," by Benjamin Smith Barton (one of our 

 botanical fathers), published in " Tilloch's Philosophical 

 Magazine " for June, 1812. Among other matters not bear- 

 ing directly upon this point, he says of Sarracenia, without 

 reference to any particular species : " A honeyed fluid is 

 secreted or deposited on the inner surface of the hollow leaves, 

 near their faux or opening ; and this fluid allures great num- 

 bers of the insects which they are found to contain into the 

 ascidia." 



Here is earlier publication by three years. Yet we suspect 

 that Dr. Barton knew little about it at first hand, and we find 

 clear evidence that he had not anticipated Dr. Macbride. All 

 his references have an indefiniteness quite in contrast with 



