SUNDEW AND BUTTERWORT. 139 



shape is fitted neatly to the bee's body, its stamens are 

 placed in the right position to brush against his back as 

 he enters the tube, and its lip is covered with long club- 

 shaped hairs among which his bristly legs can get a firm 

 and convenient foothold. It is strange thus to sec one 

 and the same plant bidding for the attentions of one 

 insect race by honest allurements of honey and colour, 

 while at the same time it spreads a deadly trap for a 

 second race with sticky glands and dissolvent acid 

 secretions. 



Why should these two totally distinct plants, living 

 together in precisely similar circumstances, have ac- 

 quired this curious and uncanny habit of catching and 

 devouring live flies ? Clearly, there must be some good 

 reason for the practice : the more so as all other 

 insect-eating plants — Venus's fly-traps, side-saddle 

 flowers, pitcher-plants, bladderworts, and so forth — 

 are invariably denizens of damp watery places, rooting 

 as a rule in moist moss or decaying loose vegetation. 

 Now, in such situations it is difficult or impossible for 

 them to obtain those materials from the soil which are 

 usually supplied by constant relays of animal manure ; 

 and under such circumstances, where the roots have no 

 access to decaying animal matter, those plants would 

 flourish best which most utilised every scrap of such 

 matter that happened to fall upon their open leaves. 

 At first, we may feel pretty sure, the leaves would only 

 catch dead flies which accidentally dropped upon their 

 surface : or they might begin by being descended from 

 slightly viscid ancestors, which had acquired their sticki- 

 ness to prevent ants and other intruders from climbing 

 up the stalk — an explanation especially probable in the 



