CHAPTER VII.
HOW WE DIGEST.
~1.~ Did you ever see a Venus's fly-trap?
This curious plant grows in North Carolina.

It is called a fly-trap because it has on each of its leaves something like a steel-trap, by means of which it catches flies.
You can see one of these traps in the picture.

When a fly touches the leaf, the trap shuts up at once, and the poor fly is caught and cannot get away.

The harder it tries to escape, the more tightly the trap closes upon it, until after a time it is crushed to death.
[Illustration: VENUS'S FLY-TRAP.] ~2.~ But we have yet to learn the most curious thing about this strange plant, which seems to act so much like an animal.

If we open the leaf after a few days, it will be found that the fly has almost entirely disappeared.