180 A GARDEN DIARY 
the largest of them—appropriately called anglica 
—being much commoner in Ireland than else- 
where in these islands. 
A very slight acquaintance with their habits 
could hardly fail, I think, to convince even the 
most sceptical that their roots are mainly em- 
ployed as anchors, and water-pipes, while for 
a supply of that nitrogen which every plant 
requires they are chiefly, if not exclusively, 
dependent upon insects. Of these the two lesser 
species would appear to content themselves with 
the smallest of Diptera and Lepidoptera, whereas 
anglica will occasionally tackle larger prey, and I 
have myself seen it with a good-sized moth (a 
noctua) attached to and nearly covering the entire 
disk, the long tentacle-like hairs being closely 
inflected over the victim, whose struggles are 
soon put an end to, once the sticky secretion 
exuding from the hairs closes above the trachea. 
When the leaf re-opens nearly the whole of the 
insect (be it fly, moth or beetle) will be found to 
have disappeared, even the wings being reduced 
to a few glittering fragments. No animal sub- 
stance in fact comes amiss; fragments of bone, 
hide, meat-fibrine, and even, according to one 
authority, tooth enamel, softening, and in time 
dissolving under the powerful solvent secreted 
by the glands. Whether the Droseracee have 
the power of attracting their prey, or must wait 
until chance sends it within their clutches, seems 
