This rare species was sent me in a living state from Cheshire, through
the kindness of Mr. John Price. The leaves and bladders are much
smaller than those of Utricularia neglecta. The leaves bear fewer and
shorter bristles, and the bladders are more globular. The antenn ,
instead of projecting in front of the bladders, are curled under the
valve, and are armed with twelve or fourteen extremely long
multicellular bristles, generally arranged in pairs. These, with seven
or eight long bristles on both sides of the peristome, form a sort of
net over the valve, which would tend to prevent all animals, excepting
very small ones, entering the bladder. The valve and collar have the
same essential structure as in the two previous species; but the glands
are not quite so numerous; the oblong ones are rather more elongated,
whilst the two-armed ones are rather less elongated. The four bristles
which project obliquely from the lower edge of the valve are short.
Their shortness, compared with those on the valves of the foregoing
species, is intelligible if my view is correct that they serve to
prevent too large animals forcing an entrance through the valve, thus
injuring it; for the valve is already protected to a certain extent by
the incurved antenn , together with the lateral bristles. The bifid
processes are like those in the previous species; but the quadrifids
differ in the four arms (fig. 25) [page 430] being directed to the same
side; the two longer ones being central, and the two shorter ones on
the outside.
The plants were collected in the middle of July; and the contents of
five bladders, which from their opacity seemed full of prey, were
examined. The first contained no less than twenty-four minute
fresh-water crustaceans, most of them consisting of empty shells, or
including only a few drops of red oily matter; the second contained
twenty; the third, fifteen; the fourth, ten, some of them being rather
larger than usual; and the fifth, which seemed stuffed quite full,
contained only seven, but five of these were of unusually large size.
The prey, therefore, judging from these five bladders, consists
exclusively of fresh-water crustaceans, most of which appeared to be
distinct species from those found in the bladders of the two former
species. In one bladder the quadrifids in contact with a decaying mass
contained numerous spheres of granular matter, which slowly changed
their forms and positions.
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