The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1885-06-05
Che Aailg 9nllFtin,
Friday. JUNE B. 1885.
A EISH.EATlNC VEGETABLE.

IL lluS lUltlN ItCn NiSIONtlNN ny ~
naturalist at Oxford that the water
plant-thc LHiculdrid (which has
long been known to prey upon mi
croscopic insects in their various
stages, and even to feast OCCASION
ally upon minute fresh-water crusta-
ceans, also ontraps and absorbs the
fry of fish.
Among the wonders of Nature,
great and small, there are few that
excel this extraordinary plant.
There are several species of it., and
they are widely distributed all over
the world, and all of them are
carnivorous.
In the autumn the buds, so to
speak, drop off the floating weed,
and, falling to the bottom, there
commence to throw out leaves. By
and-by the bladders develop--they
arc only about the ninth of an inch
when full grown-and then the
plant, equipped for a predatory life,
floats up towards the surface and
cruises about, rs the wind or the
current takes it, in quest of prey.
On one side of each bladder is a
tiny slit, with close-shutting valve,
which is so sensitive to pressure that
if a grain of glass is placed upon it
the valve gives way, and the grain
drops suddenly into the bladder,
and so tight fitting that Il hair
thrust into it is held quite fast.
Armed with this exquisite trap,
the Utyiculario drifts about in the
water, and the newly hatchcd fly,
hunting about in the inquisitivc
manner of all children, whether of
men, quadrupcds, birds, reptiles, or
fishes, must needs go prying into
the corners and angles of the weeds
around them, and poke their curious
little noses up against everything.
In time, of course, beating all
about the plant, in microscopic de-
tail, they arrive at the bladder.
Some strange projections from it,,
like the " feclers of q shrimp,
bother them at first, but they get
round them and under them, and
bob their innocent noses against the
valve. 1t instantly opens, in slips
the fish's nose, and, do what it will i,
the victim is there for ever. The
more it struggles the farther in it
gets, and by-and-by, either from the
exhaustion of oxygen in the bladder,
or from the action of the fermentine
substance which the bladder secretes,
the little fish dies.
Sometimes an incautious young
ster, examining leaf in front of it,
wags its tail against a valve behind
it, and then, like lightning, the valve
opens and shuts again, and the tail
is hopelessly fast. The lips of the
trap may be velvet, but they grip as
ruthlessly as steel; and whether tho
victim is held by nose or by tail, it
is a prisoner for life.
Again, it occasionally. happens
that fish caught at one end by one
bladder strikes another bladder will
the other, and is caught by that too
with the point of its nose in one tral
and the tip Of its tail in the other.
A special point about this vege
table assassin, this wandering fish
trap, is the fact that the bladders
being singularly transparent in tex
ture, form spots Of light, and thu:
probably attract the prey towards
them. The plants hang out lamps
in fact, to mislead the tiny mariners
and by their treacherous beacon
betray them to their death. Being
moreover, denied blossoms by Ma
turc, they have devised the idea o
ornamenting themselves with TIN
corpses Of their victims. Those
indeed, who have seen the plant
with its transparent bladders tippe'
with minute silvery fish, described
| tho vnrA,o1 nffonf ctnr,, n Il ,