But the remaining species, S. variolaris, is the most wonderful of our pitcher-plants in its adaptations for the capture of insects. The inflated and mottled lid or hood overarches the ample orifice of the tubular pitcher sufficiently to ward off the rain, but not to obstruct the free access of flying insects. Flies, ants, and most insects, glide and fall from the treacherous smooth throat into the deep well below, and never escape. They are allured by a sweet secretion just within the orifice-- which was discovered and described long ago, and the knowledge of it wellnigh forgotten until recently. And, finally, Dr. Mellichamp, of South Carolina, two years ago made the capital discovery that, during the height of the season, this lure extends from the orifice down nearly to the ground, a length of a foot or two, in the form of a honeyed line or narrow trail on the edge of the wing-like border which is conspicuous in all these species, although only in this one, so far as known, turned to such account. Here, one would say, is a special adaptation to ants and such terrestrial and creeping insects. Well, long before this sweet trail was known, it was remarked by the late Prof. Wyman and others that the pitchers of this species, in the savannahs of Georgia and Florida, contain far more ants than they do of all other insects put together. Finally, all this is essentially repeated in the peculiar Californian pitcher-plant (Darlingtonia), a genus of the same natural family, which captures insects in great variety, enticing them by a sweetish secretion over the whole inside of the inflated hood and that of a curious forked appendage, resembling a fish-tail, which overhangs the orifice. This orifice is so concealed that it can be seen and approached only from below, as if--the casual observer might infer--to escape visitation. But dead insects of all kinds, and their decomposing remains, crowd the cavity and saturate the liquid therein contained, enticed, it is said, by a peculiar odor, as well as by the sweet lure which is at some stages so abundant as to drip from the tips of the overhanging appendage. The principal observations upon this pitcher-plant in its native habitat have been made by Mrs. Austin, and only some of the earlier ones have thus far been published by Mr. Canby. But we are assured that in this, as in the Sarracenia variolaris, the sweet exudation extends at the proper season from the orifice down the wing nearly to the ground, and that ants follow this honeyed pathway to their destruction. Also, that the watery liquid in the pitcher, which must be wholly a secretion, is much increased in quantity after the capture of insects.