168 



THK LEAVES, 



of the shoots of the common Barberry offer a familiar instance of 

 the kind (Fig. 296). The most extraordinary modification of the 

 leaf occurs in the 



301. Fly-traps of Dionaea muscipula, the Venus's Fly-trap of North 



Carolina (which is found only 

 in the vicinity of Wilming- 

 ton, where it abounds in 

 wet and sandy bogs). Each 



leaf of this most curious plant bears at its summit an append- 

 age (answering, perhaps, to the proper blade), which opens and 

 shuts : fringed with strong bristles or slender teeth on its margin, 

 it bears some resemblance to a steel-trap, and operates much like 

 one. For when open, as it commonly is when the sun shines, 

 no sooner does a fly alight on its surface, and brush against any 

 one of the severed long bristles that grow there, than the trap 

 suddenly closes, often capturing the intruder, pressing it all the 

 harder for its struggles, and commonly depriving it of life. After 

 all movement has ceased within, the trap slowly opens, and is ready 

 for another capture. Why this plant catches insects, we are unable 

 to say ; and as to the mechanism of the movement it is no more and 

 no less expUcable than the much slower movements of ordinary 

 leaves in changing their position. 



TIQ. 297. A plant of Dionsea muscipula, reduced in size. 298. Three of the leaves, of 

 nearly the natural size ; one of them open, the others closed. 



