When we go to some sunny cranberry bog to look for these sundews, nothing could be more innocent looking than the tiny plant, its nodding raceme of buds, usually with only a solitary little blossom (that opens only in the sunshine) at the top of the curve, its leaves glistening with what looks like dew, though the midsummer sun may be high in the heavens. A little fly or gnat, attracted by the bright jewels, alights on a leaf only to find that the clear drops, more sticky than honey, instantly glue his feet, that the pretty reddish hairs about him act like tentacles, reaching inward, to imprison him within their slowly closing embrace. Here is one of the horrors of the Inquisition operating in this land of liberty before our very eyes! Excited by the struggles of the victim, the sensitive hairs close only the faster, working on the same principle that a vine's tendrils do when they come in contact with a trellis. More of the sticky fluid pours upon the hapless fly, plastering over his legs and wings and the pores on his body through which he draws his breath. Slowly, surely, the leaf rolls inward, making a temporary stomach; the cruel hairs bind, the glue suffocates and holds him fast. Death alone releases him. And now the leafs orgy begins: moistening the fly with a fresh peptic fluid, which helps in the assimilation, the plant proceeds to digest its food. Curiously enough, chemical analysis proves that this sundew secretes a complex fluid corresponding almost exactly to the gastric juice in the stomach of animals. Darwin, who fed these leaves with various articles, found that they could dissolve matter out of pollen, seeds, grass, etc.; yet without a human caterer, how could a leaf turn vegetarian? When a bit of any undesirable substance, such as chalk or wood, was placed on the hairs and excited them, they might embrace it temporarily; but as soon as the mistake was discovered, it would be dropped! He also poisoned the plants by administering acids, and gave them fatal attacks of indigestion by overfeeding them with bits of raw beef! Other common sundews, the SPATULATE-LEAVED SUNDEW (D. intermedia) and the THREAD-LEAVED SUNDEW (D. filiformis) whose purplish-pink flowers are reared above wet sand along the coast, possess contrivances similar to the round-leaved plant's to pursue their gruesome business. Why should these vegetables turn carnivorous? Doubtless because the soil in which they grow can supply little or no nitrogen. Very small roots testify to the small use they serve. The water sucked up through them from the bog aids in the manufacture of the fluid so freely exuded by the bristly glands, but nitrogen must be obtained by other means, even at the sacrifice of insect victims. EARLY SAXIFRAGE (Saxifraga Virginiensis) Saxifrage family