46 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



Origin of Showy and Fragrant Flowers. — Away back in the 

 dim darkness of the coal period when tree-ferns, calamites, 

 and giant club-mosses, combined with arehae-typal yews to 

 people the steaming swamps of a hot, cloud-laden island world, 

 there existed a strange form of insect which can only be com- 

 pared to the cockroaches of our day, but which seems to have 

 embodied in its structure the beginnings of all the varied t}-pes 

 of insect life, the promise and prophecy not only of our dragon- 

 flies and beetles, but also of our flies, bees, and butterflies. 

 And during the long ages that followed, while the plant life 

 was passing through the history which I have briefly sketched, 

 the insect world was experiencing a similar unfolding, and new 

 and improved types, very much as in plants, were coming into 

 existence, attaining their maximum development, and giving 

 way to still higher ones, until some time in the late Jurassic or 

 early Cretaceous age forms began to appear which were 

 adapted to obtain sustenance from the pollen, and perhaps 

 from the stigmas of flowers. To do this they were obliged to 

 pass from flower to flower and would unavoidably carry the 

 dust that adhered to their heads, wings and feet from one 

 flower to others more or less remote. Cross-fertilization, that 

 " secret of Nature " discovered by Sprengel, was thus effected, 

 and new vigor was instilled into those forms which for any 

 reason had been so fortunate as to attract these winged friends. 

 We can figure to ourselves a rivalry springing up among plants 

 as to which should offer them the greatest inducement, and 

 through the action of natural selection, which here found a 

 typical field for its normal operation, the entire nature of flow- 

 ers underwent a rapid change. To continue the figurative ex- 

 pression, all flowers vied to excel in beauty and attractiveness ; 

 for the.se tiny insects possess esthetic tastes which do not ma- 

 teriallv differ from those of mankind. 



