front tarsi and has to begin all over again. I was doubting the possibility
of her escape when, after a good quarter of an hour's struggle, she
succeeded in extricating herself.

But, where the Gad-fly has got off, the Midge remains. The winged Aphis
also remains, the Ant, the Mosquito and many another of the smaller
insects. What does the plant do with its captures? Of what use are these
trophies of corpses hanging by a leg or a wing? Does the vegetable bird-
limer, with its sticky rings, derive advantage from these death-struggles?
A Darwinian, remembering the carnivorous plants, would say yes. As for me,
I don't believe a word of it. The Oporto silene is ringed with bands of
gum. Why? I don't know. Insects are caught in these snares. Of what use are
they to the plant? Why, none at all; and that's all about it. I leave to
others, bolder than myself, the fantastic idea of taking these annular
exudations for a digestive fluid which will reduce the captured Midges to
soup and make them serve to feed the Silene. Only I warn them that the
insects sticking to the plant do not dissolve into broth, but shrivel,
quite uselessly, in the sun.

Let us return to the Tachytes, who is also a victim of the vegetable snare.
With a sudden flight, a huntress arrives, carrying her drooping prey. She
grazes the Silene's lime-twigs too closely. Behold the Mantis caught by the
abdomen. For twenty minutes at least the Wasp, still on the wing, tugs at
her, tugging again and again, to overcome the cause of the hitch and
release the spoil. The hauling-method, a continuation of the flight, comes
to nothing; and no other is attempted. At last the insect wearies and
leaves the Mantis hanging to the Silene.

Now or never was the moment for the intervention of that tiny glimmer of
reason which Darwin so generously grants to animals. Do not, if you please,