PLANTS THAT EAT INSECTS 17 
fashion, on the stem, and its dainty lace-veined 
pitchers with their shield-like wings, make the plant 
one of the most attractive of the insect-eaters. 
But while these blood-thirsty plants cunningly 
deceive and destroy many insects in order to feast 
upon them, there are at least two species of insect 
that seek their homes and food from the plants. 
One of these is a small moth, marked with greyish- 
black and yellow across its wings and back. These 
tiny moths move around in the pitchers as though 
in a miniature palace! And it is a palace to them; 
for, from the time the parent moth first lays her 
eggs at the mouth of the pitcher, until the young 
moth eats her way through the bottom of the leaf, 
it is a veritable paradise of luxuries. The small 
egg hatches into a larva which weaves for itself 
a thin silken shawl. ‘The larva feeds on the plant 
until the walls cave in, when the gaudy moth sails 
forth into the world. 
The other species of insect which finds a genial 
haven in these pitcher-plants is a fly, which in its 
larval state feeds on the decaying bodies of the 
putrid insects at the bottom of the pitcher, and 
finally bores through the leaf and drops to the 
ground, from which it later arises a full-fledged 
fly. 
These two species of insect evidently do not suit 
