Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-07-01
FLY-TRAPS.
Nature Ahead of Art.

Nature Ahead OF Art.
The Providence (R.L Journal makes
these suggestions: .-..
As the season for flies comes on
the drug-stores will put out their
papers for destroying these friends of
man, and the groceries will display
their various traps for the same pur-
pose. Brown paper. that kills the fly
mechanically by sticking up his legs
and exhaustlng him In fruitless efforts
to escape, lead-colored paper that
treacherously allures, intoxicates and
poisons, green wire traps filed with
buzzing swarms awaiting immersion
into tub or a holocaust at the kitchen
stove, will tempt the money out OF the
pockets of afflicted housekeepers. All
these contrivances are dull and brutal
things. They are either grossly treach-
erous OF wholesale traps OF no interest
at all as pieces of mechanism.
The genius of nature has ordained
that every species of animal shall be
preyed upon and destroyed by some in
stinctive enemy. But for the poor fly,
or winged insect, she has provided a
double class of enemies. On them
prev not only innumerable species of
animals but also an abundant variety
of vegetable growths. Ichneumons,
toads, birds, and spiders butcher the
gentle little fly for food, while innumer-
able animals from mere angry passion
attack and destroy them. Horses and
COWS switch them with their tails; in
deed, this seems to be the predisposing
cause of the growth of switchy tails;
dogs snap at them; men slap at them.
We will not suggest SO noxious or I'M
practicable scheme as substituting
these animals for the chemical and me-
chanical traps men have invented. An
animate horse-tail will hardly do to
brush flies away from the table, and
toads, however innocent in their man
ward habits, are terror to the women
and children Spiders might be left to
spin their webs, were it not for that
cOnventionalism of the ladies which
links reputation for neatness with the
drawings of a broom periodically over
ceilings and down the angles of the
room.
But the vegetable world can furnish
US with fy-traps at once ornamental
and effective, ingenious and capacious.
In these days, when herbariums are
affected by house-keepers, why could
not a window be filed with a curious
and active plant which will work infinite
delight for the observer? The way to
do this thing is, to secure a window
box which will hold water. In this put
some MOSES gathered from peat boys
or marshes, saturate them we'll with
water. and plant out the common pitch
er-plant and the sundews of our Allan
tic coast. The first of these plants is
only mechanical trap. Its pitcher is
filed nearly with water, which the flies
try to drink, when they fall in and
drown. Naturalists tell us that these
leaves are sometimes Sc filed with
drowned flies as to furnish rick uutrl-
ment to the plant
The sundews are an ingenious and
animated predatory flower. They know
as much as puppy four weeks old.
They can't be fooled. They will eat
animal food, but they are not like the
silly sensitive plant, which shuts up at
every touch. Mrs. Treat tells us that
her sundews know the difference be-
tween a piece of meat and piece OF
chalk. One they will shut down upon
and the other they will nottouch. This
plant spreads out it's leaves, which are
covered with little, fine bristles. On
their edge they exude delicious nectar,
which the silly little fly is fond Of. As
soon as he puts his proboscis in the
nectar, up come the spires, and fasten
him down. Then the leaf curls over
him and begins to digest him. This is
cruel, but far more comfortable than
for the flies to bite and digest us.