In summer, while hunting berries or wild flowers by the stream that runs through the pasture, you have noticed that certain plants seemed to be caught in a tangle of golden threads. If you stopped to look at this tangle, you found little clusters of white flowers scattered along the thread-like stems (Fig. 118); then, to your surprise, you discovered that nowhere was this odd-looking stem fastened to the ground. It began and ended high above the earth, among the plants which crowded along the brook’s edge. [Illustration: FIG. 118] Perhaps you broke off one of these plants about which the golden threads were twining. If so, you found that these threads were fastened firmly to the plant by means of little roots which grew into its stem, just as ordinary roots grow into the earth. This strange plant is called the “dodder.” When it was still a baby plant, it lay within its seed upon the ground, just like other baby plants; and when it burst its seed shell, like other plants it sent its roots down into the earth. But unlike any other plant I know of, it did not send up into the air any seed leaves. The dodder never bears a leaf. It sent upward a slender golden stem. Soon the stem began to sweep slowly through the air in circles, as if searching for something. Its movements were like those of a blind man who is feeling with his hands for support. And this is just what the plant was doing: it was feeling for support. And it kept up its slow motion till it found the plant which was fitted to give it what it needed. Having made this discovery, it put out a little root. This root it sent into the juicy stem of its new-found support. And thereafter, from its private store, the unfortunate plant which had been chosen as the dodder’s victim was obliged to give food and drink to its greedy visitor. And now what does this dodder do, do you suppose? Perhaps you think that at least it has the grace to do a little something for a living, and that it makes its earth root supply it with part of its food. Nothing of the sort. Once it finds itself firmly rooted in the stem of its victim, it begins to grow vigorously. With every few inches of its growth it sends new roots deep into this stem. And when it feels quite at home, and perfectly sure of its board, it begins to wither away below, where it is joined to its earth root. Soon it breaks off entirely from this, and draws every bit of its nourishment from the plant or plants in which it is rooted. Now stop a moment and think of the almost wicked intelligence this plant has seemed to show,—how it keeps its hold of the earth till its stem has found the plant which will be compelled to feed it, and how it gives up all pretense of self-support, once it has captured its prey.