growth and more gaudy flowers. To save the nectar in each deep
tube for the moths and butterflies which cross-fertilize all this
tribe of night and day blossoms, most of them - and the campions
are notorious examples - spread their calices, and some their
pedicels as well, with a sticky substance to entrap little
crawling pilferers. Although a popular name for the genus is
catchfly, it is usually the ant that is glued to the viscid
parts, for the fly that moves through the air alights directly on
the flower it is too short-lipped to suck. An ant catching its
feet on the miniature lime-twig, at first raises one foot after
another and draws it through its mouth, hoping to rid it of the
sticky stuff, but only with the result of gluing up its head and
other parts of the body. In ten minutes all the pathetic
struggles are ended. Let no one guilty of torturing flies to
death on sticky paper condemn the Silenes!

The BLADDER CAMPION (S. vulgaris; S. inflata of Gray) to be
recognized by its much inflated calyx, especially round in fruit,
the two-cleft white petals; and its opposite leaves that are
spatulate at the base of the plant, is a European immigrant now
naturalized and locally very common from Illinois eastward to New
Jersey and north to New Brunswick. Like the night-flowering
catchfly this blossom has adapted itself to the night-flying
moths; but when either remains open in the morning, bumblebees
gladly take the leavings in the deep cup. To insure
cross-fertilization, some of the bladder-campion flowers have
stamens only, some have a pistil only; some have both organs
maturing at different times. In all the night-flowering Silene,
each flower, unless unusually disturbed, lasts three days and
three nights. Late in the afternoon of the first day, when the