On the left is the Cephalotus. This plant, instead of catching the insect by the folding of the leaf, secures it by means of a sort of trap-door at the upper end. The insect is attracted by the moisture in the cup, and, as soon as it enters, the trap-door shuts upon it, and confines it until it is digested, when the door opens in readiness to admit more prey.
Birdlime.
By a natural transition we pass to those traps which secure their prey by means of adhesive substances.
With us, the material called “birdlime” is usually employed. This is obtained from the bark of the holly, and is of the most singular tenacity. An inexperienced person who touches birdlime is sure to repent it. The horrid stuff clings to the fingers, and the more attempts are made to clear them, the more points of attachment are formed. The novice ought to have dipped his hands in water before he touched the birdlime, and then he might have manipulated it with impunity.
The most familiar mode of using the birdlime is by “pegging” for chaffinches.
In the spring, when the male birds are all in anxious rivalry to find mates, or, having found them, to defend them, the “peggers” go into the fields armed with a pot of birdlime and a stuffed chaffinch set on a peg of wood. At one end of this peg is a sharp iron spike. They also have a “call-bird,” i.e. a chaffinch which has been trained to sing at a given signal.
When the “peggers” hear a chaffinch which is worth taking, they feel as sure of him as if he were in their cage. They take the peg, and stick it into the nearest tree-trunk. Round the decoy they place half-a-dozen twigs which have been smeared with birdlime, and arrange them so that no bird flying at the decoy can avoid touching one of them.
The next point is, to order the call-bird to sing. His song is taken as a personal insult by the chaffinch, which is always madly jealous at this time of year. Seeing the stuffed bird, he takes it for a rival, dashes at it, and touches one of the twigs. It is all over with him, for the more he struggles and flutters, the tighter is he bound by the tenacious cords of the birdlime, and is easily picked up by the “pegger.”
Even the fierce and powerful tiger is taken with this simple, but terrible means of destruction. It is always known by what path a tiger will pass, and upon this path the native hunter lays a number of leaves smeared with birdlime. The tiger treads on one of them, and, cat-like, shakes his paw to rid himself of it. Finding that it will not come off, he rubs his paw on his head, transferring the leaf and lime to his face.