Groom . — On Dischidia rafflesiana ( Wall .). 229 
position with its mouth in contact with the bark of a Taxodium 
distichum. The results were somewhat surprising when we 
consider the deeply incurved lips of the mouth. A considerable 
amount of water entered the pitcher held against an upright 
trunk, or against the inferior face or the side of a thick, 
gently sloping branch. No water entered when the pitcher 
was held against the upper side of the same branch. Thus 
rain-water can get into some pitchers even when rain cannot 
fall directly into them. In such cases as these it is clear that 
the pitcher-roots could utilize soluble matters in any solid 
contents which might be present in the pitchers. But there 
still remain to be accounted for those pitchers which are so 
placed that rain-water cannot enter them under any circum- 
stances. 
The question arises, Whence come the considerable 
quantities of earth and humus which the pitchers frequently 
contain? Till one makes experiments one is apt to very 
much underrate the mass of solid substance which, after even 
one heavy rainfall, is floated down the surface of a tree — 
especially of a tree with a partially disintegrated or peeling 
bark, such as that of the tree from which I collected my 
Dischidia- material. But making due allowance for this fact, 
I think that the solids in the pitchers examined were mainly 
brought by ants. Mr. H. N. Ridley, whose observations on 
ants’ nests are well known, agrees with this view and states 
that they are the remains of ants’ nests. Whilst at Singapore 
I noticed that these particles were present in pitchers which 
could not be reached by rain-water, and that they were 
sometimes arranged loosely throughout the pitcher-cavity, 
and at other times on one side only. Amongst the fragments 
of earth were small pieces of leaves which looked exactly as 
if they had been cut. Mr. Ridley has recently observed that 
the earth found in the pitchers is the same as that growing at 
the foot of the host-tree : he found clay in the pitchers and 
clay at the foot of the tree. All these facts harmonize with 
the view that the particles were largely brought by the ants, 
just as ants bring fragments of leaves, &c., to build nests under 
