XVI 
PLANTS THAT KIDNAP 
LANTS actually kidnap! Some are worse 
than highway robbers, allowing their captives 
to die in confinement or killing them outright; oth- 
ers are merely selfish and desirous of enslaving or 
using their prey to their advantage without giving 
value received. It is one of the strange incon- 
sistencies of nature—this capturing and holding of 
an insect by a plant which makes a victim of the 
friend that has benefited it. As most of the kid- 
napping plants receive no sustenance from the 
death of their victims, it is more kind to suppose 
that this act on their part is unavoidable. 
The great family of Orchids claim the first men- 
tion as kidnappers. Their purpose is fertilisation, 
and their methods are many, and cunningly de- 
vised; although they are not cruel, for they release 
the guest as soon as the act of fertilisation is accom- 
plished. This kidnapping may be excused when 
it is considered that without the aid of certain in- 
sect “go-betweens” many species of orchids would 
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