Vegetable and Animal 
they are drowned and digested without any hope of 
escape. 
Plants are seldom guilty of stupid, senseless cruelty. 
This Nepenthes is on the same moral scale as a fisher- 
man, but one cannot say the same of Araujia sericifera 
(see p. 150). The way in which all sorts of insects are 
employed to carry pollen benefits both themselves, other 
animals, and the plant-world. 
The migrations of birds depend upon the first ap- 
pearance of the insect swarms on which they feed. So 
in southerly places, and in the lowlands, swallows and 
other migrants arrive earlier in the season than in the 
north and alpine districts. 
Nor is it only insects that are used in pollination ; 
many of the finest flowers in subtropical and tropical 
lands are haunted by the brilliant, flashing little sun- 
birds and humming-birds. Even in this country one 
may see an occasional sparrow picking at the heads of 
ragweed. Yet there is a great difference between any 
ordinary flower and the flaming scarlet blossoms, with 
curved narrow tubes, of some lobelias and _salvias. 
A sun-bird has a thin, narrow, and curved beak, and if 
his wife is responsible for his gorgeous clothing, its 
colour is a good example of her taste. These jewels 
of nature are as different as possible from the ordinary 
bird which was its ancestor, and which picked insects 
out of honey. Bats, kangaroos, and small mammals 
are also used to carry pollen according to report. 
Another way in which the animal enemies of plants 
are utilised by them is in the carrying about of fruits 
and seeds. 
The Harpagophytum and Martynia of South Africa 
and other fruits with ingenious spiny, hooked or sticky 
attachments have also been a favourite and familiar part 
of the botany of several years ago. 
202 
