It is called the “sundew.” This name has been given to it because in the sunshine its leaves look as though wet with dew. But the pretty drops which sparkle like dew do not seem so innocent when you know their object. You feel that they are no more pleasing than is the bit of cheese in the mouse trap. When you see this plant growing in the swamp among the cranberry vines and the pink orchids, you admire its little white flowers, and its round red-haired leaves, and think it a pretty, harmless thing. But bend down and pluck it up, root and all, out of the wet, black earth. Carry it home with you, and, if you have a magnifying glass, examine one of its leaves. The picture (Fig. 157) shows you a leaf much larger than it is in life. The red hairs look like pins stuck in a cushion, and the head of each pin glistens with the drop that looks like dew. [Illustration: FIG. 157] But the ants and flies do not take these drops for dew. They believe them to be the sweet nectar for which they long, and they climb or light upon the leaves in this belief. And then what happens? The next two pictures will show you (Figs. 158, 159). [Illustration: FIG. 158] [Illustration: FIG. 159] The red hairs close slowly but surely over the insect whose legs are already caught and held fast by the sticky drops it mistook for nectar, and they hold it imprisoned till it dies and its juices are sucked in by the leaf. I should like you to satisfy yourselves that these leaves act in the way I have described. But a bit of fresh meat will excite the red hairs to do their work quite as well as an insect, and I hope in your experiments you will be merciful as well as inquiring. So you see that the little sundew is quite as cruel in its way as the other insect-eating plants. But its gentle looks seem to have deceived the poet Swinburne, who wonders how and what these little plants feel, whether like ourselves they love life and air and sunshine. “A little marsh-plant, yellow-green And tipped at lip with tender red, Tread close, and either way you tread, Some faint, black water jets between Lest you should bruise its curious head. “You call it sundew; how it grows, If with its color it have breath, If life taste sweet to it, if death Pain its soft petal, no man knows, Man has no sight or sense that saith.” THE FALL OF THE LEAF You know that in autumn nearly all the leaves fall from the trees. To be sure, a few trees (such as the pines and hemlocks) and some plants (such as the laurel and wintergreen and partridge vine) do hold fast their leaves all winter; but these are so few as compared with the many plants which lose their leaves, that they hardly count. Perhaps you never stopped to wonder why most plants get rid of their leaves before winter comes on; but you feel pretty sure now that there is some good reason for a habit that is adopted by nearly all the plants that live in this part of the country.