Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/227

 Rh stores them up unquestionably for the food of itself or its progeny, probably depositing its eggs in their carcases, as others of the same tribe lay their eggs in various caterpillars, which they sometimes bury afterwards in the ground. Thus a double purpose is answered; nor is it the least curious circumstance of the whole, that an European insect should find out an American plant in a hot-house, in order to fulfil that purpose.

If the above explanation of the Sarracenia be admitted, that of the Nepenthes will not be difficult. Each leaf of this plant terminates in a sort of close-shut tube, like a tankard, holding an ounce or two of water, certainly secreted through the footstalk of the leaf, whose spiral-coated vessels are uncommonly large and numerous. The lid of this tube either opens spontaneously, or is easily lifted up by insects and small worms, who are supposed to resort to these leaves in search of a purer beverage than the surrounding swamps afford. Rumphius, who has described and figured the plant, says "various little worms and insects crawl into the orifice, and die in the tube, except a certain small squilla