232 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



dition, which he attributed simply to decomposition. 

 The quadrifid processses were bathed in this sUmy 

 animal matter, but although the processes themselves 

 seemed to contain abundance of fine granular 

 matter, possibly the result of absorption, the quantity 

 of surrounding animal matter rendered the observa- 

 tion uncertain. 



At a meeting of the Queckett Microscopical Club, 

 held on February 20, 1903, a letter was read from 

 Mr E. Ernest Green of the Paradenyia Gardens, 

 Ceylon, stating that, although he had no acquaint- 

 ance with the British species of Utricularia, he 

 was quite sure that a small species of this plant 

 found in Ceylon did capture and hold fish in the way 

 described. Mr Green had witnessed the process in 

 an aquarium of his own, and although the bladders 

 of the Ceylonese plant are barely one-sixteenth of 

 an inch in length, he had on several occasions seen 

 young fish nearly an inch long securely held by 

 their tails in these tiny but most effective traps. 



Utricularia vulgaris, like other species of the 

 genus (major, minor, and neglecta), is very local, 

 growing in isolated patches in ponds and sluggish 

 ditches, where coarse fish usually deposit their ova. 

 This renders it as great an enemy to the small fry 

 as wildfowl and otters are to the larger fish in streams 

 and rivers, because for a considerable time after 

 they emerge from the &<gg the young fish remain in 

 the shallow water, and during this time g-reat 

 numbers of them must be killed by the vesicles of 

 Utricularia. 



Mr Simms observed that, except in cases where 



