Since there is so much honesty, however, in the plant world, rogues, and thieves, and pilferers must abound. Consider the animal kingdom. Where herds of deer roam in the wilds there beasts of prey are on the prowl, or sportsmen stalk with murderous guns in hand. Where herrings and pilchards crowd in shoals clouds of gulls and gannets hover, and porpoises with rapacious maws tumble and roll about. Where earthworms abound there moles with ravenous appetite are furiously driving mines, or birds that have sharp, quick bills keep watch with keen eyes. And so in this honest plant community, preying on it and pilfering from it, live and flourish hosts of vegetable villains; some without a trace of green in their whole being, living by theftuous practices alone; some with just the faintest suspicion of green and the slightest indications of a true nature; others with a good deal of the better color about them, but still only indifferently honest. There is something of marvel and mystery about these plant pilferers—of strange peculiarities in their modes of life, and in their adaptations for plundering and preying, which can hardly fail to interest intelligent minds, even when brought before them in a sketch such as this, which does not profess to take in more than the outermost fringe of a wide field. Without terms and technicalities and a strange jargon of crabbed words that would be dry as dust, and meaningless to most readers, little professing to be thorough can be done; yet, after all, something more generally comprehensive may ooze through in comparatively plain English.