So FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



secretion or honey-like exudation, noticed by Dr. 

 McBride, and other observers, as being found at the 

 mouth of the tube. " I found it," he writes, " precisely 

 in the place described, save that it extended down- 

 wards more than a quarter of an inch, generally half 

 an inch, or even three quarters of an inch. I also 

 found it more sparingly under the arched lid, or upper 

 lip of the leaf, in and among the thick and coarse 

 hairs found there, and which, I believe, are thicker and 

 coarser than those in the lowermost portion of the 

 tube. Dr. McBride, however, failed to trace the 

 continuance of the sugary exudation, which I fre- 

 quently found glistening, and somewhat viscid, along 

 the whole red or purple -coloured border, or edging of 

 the broad wing, extending from the cleft in the lower 

 lip, even to the ground. There is, therefore, a painted 

 or honey-baited pathway, leading directly from the 

 petiole (or the ground itself) up to the mouth, where 

 it extends on each side, as far as the commissures of 

 the lips, from which it runs within, and downwards, 

 for at least half an inch." 



" One can now readily understand why ants should 

 so frequently be found among the earliest macerated 

 insects at the base of the tube. Their fondness for 

 saccharine juices is well known, and, while reconnoi- 

 tring at the base of the leaf, and bent on plunder, they 

 are doubtless soon attracted, by the sweets of the 

 honeyed path lying right before them, along which 



