In the cases of insecticide next to be considered, such evidence of intent
is wanting, but other and circumstantial evidence may be had, sufficient to
warrant convictions. Sarracenias have hollow leaves in the form of pitchers
or trumpet-shaped tubes, containing water, in which flies and other insects
are habitually drowned. They are all natives of the eastern side of North
America, growing in bogs or low ground, so that they cannot be supposed to
need the water as such. Indeed, they secrete a part if not all of it. The
commonest species, and the only one at the North, which ranges from
Newfoundland to Florida, has a broad-mouthed pitcher with an upright lid,
into which rain must needs fall more or less. The yellow Sarracenia, with
long tubular leaves, called "trumpets in the Southern States, has an
arching or partly upright lid, raised well above the orifice, so that some
water may rain in; but a portion is certainly secreted there, and may be
seen bedewing the sides and collected at the bottom before the mouth opens.
In other species, the orifice is so completely overarched as essentially to
prevent the access of water from without. In these tubes, mainly in the
water, flies and other insects accumulate, perish, and decompose. Flies
thrown into the open-mouthed tube of the yellow Sarracenia, even when free
from water, are unable to get out--one hardly sees why, except that they
cannot fly directly upward; and microscopic chevaux-de-frise of fine,
sharp-pointed bristles which line most of the interior, pointing strictly
downward, may be a more effectual obstacle to crawling up the sides than
one would think possible. On the inside of the lid or hood of the purple
Northern species, the bristles are much stronger; but an insect might
escape by the front without encountering these. In this species, the
pitchers, however, are so well supplied with water that the insects which
somehow are most abundantly attracted thither are effectually drowned, and
the contents all summer long are in the condition of a rich liquid manure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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