AZALEA VISCOSA. 517 
There are many other interesting achievements performed by 
this sagacious race of insects. I have recently discovered a great 
difference in their mental operations and capacities. Individuals 
there are which possess great intellectual superiority to the com- 
mon laboring classes, which is manifested in the fact that they 
assume the leadership in all their important public works and 
army movements. Some are much more sagacious and cautious 
in avoiding traps and dangerous contrivances set for them by the 
scarcely superior human genus. ; 
One of our Germans invented a very destructive ant trap. It 
is set over the entrance to their city, and is so contrived, that 
going or coming it is sure to entrap them; but not all of them. 
Occasionally a well formed fellow is observed to arrive at the top 
of the precipice, where he stops and gravely and cautiously sur- 
veys the awful abyss below, filled with frantic and terribly dis- 
tressed thousands—who have incautiously precipitated themselves 
into inevitable ruin—and after viewing the dreadful and disas- 
trous condition of his fellow laborers, he seems to understand the 
true nature of the misfortune, and turning from the irremediable 
calamity, hastens down the inclined place into the grass weeds, 
beyond the reach of further observation. 
Quite a number of them are seen to examine and hastily fly 
from the entrance of this destructive trap. 
AZALEA VISCOSA, A FLY-CATCHER. 
BY W. W. BAILEY. 
HE many curious observations published of late in regard to 
vegetable fly-catchers have opened my eyes to such phenomena 
as are presented in my forest walks. As is well known to all 
botanists, our sweet swamp azalea (Azalea viscosa) has its 
red on the outside with innumerable clammy and 
glandular hairs. Éach hair is a prolongation of the cuticle and 
48 surmounted by a purple and globular gland. In the bud, these 
hairs appear to cover the whole surface of the flower, but when 
the corolla expands, they are seen to occupy the midrib of the 
