154 Mar loth. — Some recent Observations 
and whether such may occur at the other locality of the plant 
I am unable to say. 
While studying the structure of the flowers of the shrub 
(Fig. 15, 2), I noticed that the position of the anthers varied, 
for some anthers were appressed to the filament, i. e. they 
pointed downwards, while others formed the continuation 
of the filament, standing upright. I soon detected the cause 
of this difference of position, for, on irritating the connective of 
a stamen, I saw the anther swinging round with a jerk ejecting 
a little cloud of pollen. This showed that the stamens of 
Roridula are irritable (Fig. 15, 3 and 4). 
This special contrivance showed that the fertilization of 
these flowers must be effected by insects ; but in spite of my 
watching the shrubs for about an hour, I did not observe any 
visitor. The difficulty of the case was to understand how an 
insect could be adapted to visiting these flowers, for how 
could it escape being caught by the leaves or calyx-lobes, 
unless it had learnt to avoid the danger in some special way. 
At last I found the solution of the problem, for I noticed 
a small hemipterous insect walking about between the leaves. 
I succeeded in securing a few of these insects, which were 
evidently as proof against the sticky fluid as the spiders. 
They /were kindly identified by Dr. Purcell and Mr. Mally as 
a species of Capsids, apparently undescribed. The micro- 
scope showed me that these insects possess a proboscis 
somewhat similar to that of a mosquito, and that they con- 
sequently obtain their food by perforating the tissues of plants 
and sucking their juices. As I found young specimens of this 
hemipter two months afterwards on plants of Roridula which 
I had brought with me to Capetown, and which I was culti- 
vating in my garden, it is evident that the eggs had been 
deposited on the plants and that this insect lived on the juice 
of the young tissues of the Roridula. The question suggested 
itself, whether the flowers possessed any special attraction for 
this insect. On investigating the contents of the gland-like 
connectives of the stamens, I ascertained by micro-chemical 
reactions that the internal tissue of the connective contained 
