Another very odd plant which eats insects is the side-saddle plant. This is often called the pitcher-plant. It looks far more like a pitcher than like a saddle. The leaves of this plant are like a beautiful pitcher painted red and green. These plants are common in the South. They grow also in marshy places in the North. I remember how happy I was when my father brought me three of them, when I was a little girl. There are two or three kinds of these pitcher-plants. One kind is green, spotted with red, and has some yellow lines. Another kind is green with purple marks. You must notice that the inner side of the lid is of the brightest color. Why is this? Insects see the gay color and fly to the plant. The leaves of the pitcher-plant are large, and they are bent and the edges grow together nearly all the way up. This forms a close pitcher which will hold water. The seam where the leaves are joined is usually of a light yellow color. It is covered with a honey-like juice, in small drops. The rim of the pitcher and the inside of the neck have also these honey drops. The insects, attracted by the gay color, come to feed on the honey. They feed along the seam and rim, and so into the throat of the pitcher. They seem to get dizzy, or so full of honey, that they feel dull. They get down into the pitcher, and--there they stay! Why do they not come out? For three reasons. The inside of the pitcher has a band of hairs growing downward. The insects cannot creep up through these. The hairs turn them back, as a brush fence turns cattle. Then, too, part of the inside of the pitcher is so smooth that insects fall back when they walk on it. Still, as they can walk on glass, I think their slipping back must be due more to being dizzy, than to the smooth surface. And here is the third reason, the pitcher is half full of liquid, and this liquid seems to make the insect dizzy. This liquid looks like pure, clear water. It tastes like the root of the plant,--a biting taste. It is not like the honey-dew which lies on the seam for a bait. In this liquid, inside, the insects are drowned. You may find many dead insects in one pitcher. I told you a little about this, in the last book, in the lessons on flies.[12] The dead bodies of the insects melted up seem to help to feed the plant. But often a pitcher catches more insects than the plant can use. There are many kinds of pitcher-plants in very warm lands. You may be able to see some of them in hot-houses. All have the same general way of killing and eating insects. FOOTNOTES: [11] See Nature Reader, No. 2, p. 77. [12] Nature Reader, No. 2, pp. 59-60. LESSON XIII. WEATHER PROPHET PLANTS. Once, when I was a little girl, I ran one morning to the garden, and said to the old Scotchman who worked there, “To-day I am going up the mountain for berries.”