not necessary to go out upon the surface of the bank, which was considerably less than perpendicular. He had only to cut away the crust with his knife, and so gradually work his way upward in a soft trench, leaving only his head and shoulders above the crust. Philip felt a strange exultation in this new power to advance upward, and all his sturdy strength came to his aid in his extremity. He felt no disposition to look back at the trail he knew he was leaving in the snow. He was certain now of gaining the top of the bank, but what lay beyond he knew not. Half the distance he had fallen would still be above him. He was almost up now; but at the very top of the bank there was another curl of the snow, and once more he had to burrow under like a mole. When Philip's head did appear again on the surface, it was not so light as before, and with his first glance around he saw that the moon was already sinking below the opposite ridge. He was almost within reach of another hole to his left; and by its appearance, and by the distance he had come, he knew it was not the one that he had seen from below; and beside this opening the last rays of the moon glinted. "PHILIP COULD SEE THE HOLE IN THE SNOW THROUGH WHICH HE KNEW HE MUST HAVE FALLEN." (SEE PAGE 656.) was, he shrank trembling into the snow, and for a whole minute he never moved a muscle. Fortunately for his shattered nerves, it was on the brass barrel of the telescope attached From where he crouched now on the snow he could see the edge of the plateau above him, and, as near as he could judge, it was rather less than fifty feet away. The smooth rock was cased in thin ice- so thin that he believed he could see the black storm-stain underneath. It was growing dark now, and after all his toil and hope he had gained only a little higher seat on the back of the avalanche. He saw with half a glance that it would be impossible to climb higher. He heard the wind whistle through the branches of the dwarfed old chestnut-trees over his head; and as the cold was so still about him, he knew that it was an east wind. He could go nearer to the ledge, but he could gain no foothold on the rock. In the midst of his cruel disappointment and his awful dread of the sun which would come to melt the snow next day, he felt a greater terror than he had felt when he had first found himself down below. His companions might have gone mad and thrown him over the rock,- it was all a dark mystery to poor Philip. He could barely see about him now. Even the sun would be better than this darkness. It might be cold to-mor row. At any rate, it would be afternoon before the sun, however warm, could get in its deadly work on the avalanche. It never occurred to him that he was nearly famished; and he must have slept some while he lay in the snow; for he dreamed that the people were gathered at the post-office to see him fall, and a crash like the roar of battle brought him to his senses with a start. The next time he awoke, the bright sun was indeed shining, and he was stiff with the cold, as he had found himself at first. He was hungry, too, as he had never been hungry before, and the fear of starvation seemed more dreadful to him than the dread of the avalanche. As he lay there in his weakened state, his ears were alert for the faintest sound. He thought he heard a movement on the ledge above him, and then he heard voices, clear and distinct. They were the voices of Coleman and Bromley. "Poor Philip!" he heard them say. At first he was unable to speak in his excitement, but in a moment he raised his voice with all the strength of his lungs, and cried, "Help! Help!" "Is that you, Philip?" "Yes, George! Yes! Help!" By questioning him they learned what his situation was, and the distance he lay from the top of the ledge; for they could gain no position whence they could see him. They bade him keep up his courage until they came back. It was indeed a long time before he heard their voices again speaking to him, and then down over the icy rock came a knotted rope made of strings of the canvas that remained of the "A" tent. At the end of the life-line, as it dangled nearer and nearer, were two strong loops like a breeches-buoy. Philip felt strong again when he had the line in his hand, and thrusting his legs through the loops, he called out to haul away. As he went up, up, he clung fast with his hands to the canvas; but he was too weak to keep himself away from the rock with his feet, so he bumped against it until he was drawn over the surface of the same stone he had slipped on the morning before. He saw the kind faces of his two comrades, and then he sank unconscious on the firm earth at their feet. (To be continued.) PLANTS THAT FEED UPON INSECTS. BY THOMAS H. KEARNEY, JR. PLANTS, like animals, must eat to live. They cannot grow unless they have food. Even the very young plant in the seed is supplied with nourishment upon which it lives until it has become strong enough to care for itself. Open a THE SUNDEW. morning-glory seed and you will find the tiny beginning of the morning-glory vine inside, with a clear substance like jelly packed around the two little leaves. The two halves of a large seed, as an acorn or a bean, are really leaves, stored full of starch, whereon the seedling may feed until it has taken hold upon the ground. It is just as the chick in an egg is nourished by the yolk until it is hatched. Most plants are content to draw their food from the air through their leaves, and from the soil through their roots. But there are some dainty feeders that are not satisfied with the simple diet of other plants, but like richer and better prepared food. Among these the most wonderful are what are called insectivorous plants, such as feed upon insects. It seems a cruel thing that plants should be fitted to prey upon flies or beetles. But when we come to see the curious ways in which some of these insect-feeding plants are fitted to catch and live upon their quarry, we cannot but admire them. Perhaps some of the readers of ST. NICHOLAS have noticed the little plants called sundews, that dwell in bogs in almost every part of the world. The commonest of these in the United States and in England is the roundleafed sundew, which has a rosette of roundish leaves on slender stalks. Out of the midst of them rises a leafless stem, bearing a number of small white flowers, that open one by one when the sun is shining. The leaves are fringed and covered on the upper side with small, dark-red bodies, called glands, borne on slender stalks, like tiny, round-headed nails. On each of these little glands may be seen a drop of clear, sticky liquid that glistens in the sunlight. And this appearance earns for the plant its pretty name of "sundew." VENUS'S FLY-TRAP. fastened, at the same time pouring out an extraordinary quantity of their sticky fluid. is like a puppy whose mouth waters when he catches sight of a bone. This movement of the gland-stalks is very slow, and it takes many hours for the outer ones to close down on the poor little victim. When they are at last completely bent, it is a number of days before they once more begin to spread. Meantime the fluid which they pour upon the body of the insect actually digests all the eatable part of him, leaving the hard shell or the thin wings behind, when the glands return to their places. Sundews will digest tiny bits of meat if placed upon the leaves. There is no doubt that the plants are better for an occasional meal upon an insect, for those that do not obtain such food once in a while thrive less than the plants that succeed in securing it. Near the city of Wilmington, in eastern North Carolina, there grows a wonderful plant, the Venus's Fly-Trap, a cousin of the sundew. It inhabits the moist, sandy pine woods along the Cape Fear River, and is also found in other places along the coast of North and South Carolina, but grows nowhere else in the world. Sometimes it is cultivated in greenhouses. The Venus's Fly-Trap is like the sundew in having a tuft of leaves with a flower-stalk growing up among them. The blossoms are larger, and are white. The leaves, which spread out on the ground, are the marvelous part of the plant. They are of two partsa narrow-winged stalk and a wider portion which is called the blade. The blade is hinged in the middle, so that the two halves can close together. The edges are fringed with stiff prickles, like a row of sharp spikes. On the upper side of the blade are a few delicate bristles, usually three on each half. These are very sensitive, so that if you touch one of them ever so lightly the two halves of the leaf close together quickly. Now, when an insect crawls up on one of THE PITCHER-PLANT. these leaves from the ground, or alights upon it to rest after flying, he is very apt to touch one of the bristles. Instantly the blade folds to gether and catches the unlucky visitor, while the spikes around the edges interlock and keep him from getting out that way. However, the spikes do not fit together very closely, so that tiny insects, the small fry that it is not worth while for the plant to digest, can escape by the openings between them. The leaf remains folded until all the eatable part of the beetle or butterfly has been swallowed, which takes several days. Then it opens again and is ready for the next comer, unless it happens that it has eaten more than is good for it, and then it sometimes dies. The Venus's Fly-Trap is often spoken of as the most wonderfully fashioned plant in the world, and perhaps it deserves to be so called. There are not many animals that are better fitted for capturing their prey than is this small member of the vegetable kingdom. A relative of the Catchfly lives in the water, and catches very small shell-fish and other little water creatures. It is called Aldrovanda, and is a native of Europe, India, and Australia. Its leaves are never spread out flat, but are open about as far as an oyster-shell is held when the oyster is alive. There is a quaint plant, and a very pretty one, quite common in the Northern States, that grows in peat-bogs. It has large flowers with an odd, umbrella-like shield in the center. The shape of this has given it the name of Sidesaddle Flower, but it does not look very much like a side-saddle. The most familiar name for the plant is Pitcher-Plant, and it is sometimes called Huntsman's Cup, or Purple Trumpet-Leaf. This Pitcher-Plant has leaves shaped like open cups, that stand up from the ground in a cluster. They are generally about half full of rain-water, in which many insects are drowned. It is probable that these serve as food for the plant. The pitchers are gaily colored green with dark-red or purple veining, and sometimes purple all over. Down south, in the sandy pine-barrens that border the North and South Carolina and Florida coasts, there are other Trumpet-Leafs, or Pitcher-Plants, some of them even more cleverly contrived as fly-traps than the Northern one. Two of these have the tops of the pitchers protected by lids, to keep the rain-water out. The insects that get into these pitchers are drowned in a liquid produced by the plant itself and held in the bottoms of the leaves. Along one side of the pitcher is a narrow wing, which often bears a trace of honey. This serves to entice insects from the ground up along the wing to the mouth of the pitcher. If one of these pitchers is cut open, the bottom is found to be filled with the remains of unhappy creatures that have perished there. They make us think of the bones that strew the grim old ogre's castle in the fairy tale. California has a Trumpet-Leaf still more remarkable than those that grow in the East. is the Darlingtonia, named for Dr. Darlington, a famous botanist who lived near Philadelphia many years ago. In the mountains where it grows the people call it "Calf's Head," from the shape of the pitchers. These are sometimes three feet tall, and are covered at top by a sort of hood that bends down over the mouth. The hood ends in two spreading wings that give it the look of a fish's tail. Like the other Trumpet-Leafs, Darlingtonia has its pitchers brightly colored, so as to catch the eyes of flying insects and lure them to their destruction. Around the mouth of the pitcher, along the "fish-tail,” and often down the wing on one side, there is a little of the sweetish, sticky substance that offers a bait to the visitor, tempting him to come always a little farther in search of more. The upper side of the fish-tail and the inside of the pitchers are covered with stiff hairs that point downward. Master Insect finds it easy work to crawl down into the pitcher, but if he gets frightened by the darkness at the bottom and tries to return as he came, he finds these hairs very much in his way. So at length, worn out by his vain efforts to climb up, he usually falls into the well beneath him. But even if he is strong enough to get past the hairs, he is not likely to find his way to the opening; for that is quite dark, while the hood covering the pitcher is lighted up by thin yellow dots scattered over it, much like the oilpaper that people covered their windows with |