A Wicked Innkeeper
As you know, plants hang out signs to attract Mrs. Bee and Mrs. Butterfly and other insects to the feast they have spread—the pollen and the nectar feast. The signs are the attractive colors of the flowers.
One flower that hangs out a very pretty little white sign is the Sundew. The sign seems to say to the passing fly or gnat, “Come, rest upon one of my pretty, sparkling leaves, and take a meal at my pretty white blossom-table. Stop at Sundew Inn.”
The little fly is charmed with the cordial invitation, and lights down upon one of the leaves which glisten all day with a substance that looks like dew.
In a moment, he knows his mistake, for the sparkling drops are a sticky fluid which holds the little fellow fast, and the tiny hairs on the leaf’s surface bite him like so many mosquitoes!
The leaf rolls up a little, and more of the sticky fluid pours upon him. It is the digestive fluid of the plant. The wicked Sundew Innkeeper is eating up his guest!
“Just like the Spider and Fly in the old story,” said Mary Frances, repeating the lines:
“‘Will you walk into my parlor?’
Said the spider to the fly,
‘’Tis the prettiest little parlor
That ever you did spy.’”
“Exactly!” agreed Jack. “The sundew invites the fly for the same reason that the spider does—because it needs it for food.”
“Oh,” shuddered Eleanor, “do plants eat animals?”
“Not if they can help it,” replied Jack. “Many, many years ago, when the sundew’s great-great-great-great-grandparents were unable to find the kind of food they needed, they developed this method of getting nitrogenous food, to keep from starving.”
“Oh, I see,” said Mary Frances, looking wise.
“Is the sundew the only plant which eats insects?” asked Eleanor; “and does it grow around here?”
“It grows in every section of this country,” replied Jack, “and also in Europe and Asia.”
“The Pitcher Plant, which is found in soggy marshes, eats insects, too,” he went on; “only it manages in a different way. Its leaves are shaped like vases or pitchers, and are usually half filled with water; its flowers are reddish purple in color, easily deceiving the flies into thinking they are meat. The insects are attracted also by the sweet fluid, which is on the edge of the ‘pitcher,’ and crawl or slide down the slippery hairs which line the upper part.
“Once down, the bristly hairs prevent them from climbing back, and they are drowned in the water. The plant eats the soup which their bodies make. The form of Pitcher Plant which grows in the western states has vases large enough to drown small birds and field mice.”
“It isn’t a pretty story,” commented Mary Frances.
“Not a bit,” agreed Eleanor.
“It would make us ashamed, wouldn’t it, Jack,” Bouncing Bet was speaking, “if anybody but Mother Nature had invented that way of keeping things moving?”
“She must have had good reason,” replied Jack.
[CHAPTER XLV]
Uninvited Guests
“SO much, then, for the disrespectable murderer branch of the family,” he continued. “Now I will tell you about some of our thieves. We don’t approve of them any more than you would approve of a cousin who turned out to be a thief, but—well, I shall begin by telling you about—
