The next picture (Fig. 154) shows you a water plant. It is called the “bladderwort,” because of the little bags or bladders which you see growing from the branches under water. The little bladders are traps set for water animals, which swim into them in their wish, perhaps, to escape some enemy. But they are quite unable to swim out again; for the door into the bladder is transparent, and looks like an open entrance with a nice hiding place beyond. It opens easily from the outside, but is so arranged that it will not open from within. So when the poor little animal hurriedly swims into what seems to it a cozy resting spot, and draws a long breath of relief at getting safe inside, it is hopelessly caught, and must slowly starve to death, for there is no chance of escape. It may live for nearly a week in this prison; but at last it dies. Its body decays, and is taken in as food by the cells set apart for that purpose. Strangely enough, though we ourselves do not hesitate to kill animals for food, and sometimes, I am sorry to say, for nothing but amusement, we give a little shiver of disgust when we find these plants doing the same thing. Some lines that came out in one of the magazines a few years ago express this feeling:— “What’s this I hear About the new Carnivora? Can little plants Eat bugs and ants And gnats and flies? A sort of retrograding! Surely the fare Of flowers is air, Or sunshine sweet. They shouldn’t eat Or do aught so degrading.” MORE CRUEL TRAPS The plants about which we read in the last chapter do not take any active part in capturing insects. They set their traps, and then keep quiet. But there are plants which lay hold of their poor victims, and crush the life out of them in a way that seems almost uncanny. This leaf (Fig. 155) belongs to a plant which lives in North Carolina. It is called Venus’s flytrap. [Illustration: FIG. 155] You see that the upper, rounded part of the leaf is divided by a rib into two halves. From the edges of these rounded halves run out a number of long, sharp teeth; and three stout bristles stand out from the central part of each half. When an insect alights upon this horrible leaf, the two halves come suddenly together, and the teeth which fringe their edges are locked into one another like the fingers of clasped hands. The poor body that is caught in this cruel trap is crushed to pieces. Certain cells in the leaf then send out an acid in which it is dissolved, and other cells swallow the solution. After this performance the leaf remains closed for from one to three weeks. When finally it reopens, the insect’s body has disappeared, and the trap is set and ready for another victim. The next picture (Fig. 156) shows you a little plant which is very common in our swamps,—so common that some of you ought to find it without difficulty next summer, and try upon it some experiments of your own. [Illustration: FIG. 156]