SILENE STEI.LATA. STARRY CAMPION', OR CATCHKLV. 47 



" The fell Sikne and her sisters fair," 



and gives the following warning to the unsuspecting bees and 

 other insects, referring, under the designation of the " three 

 dread sirens," to the three pistils of the flowers : — 



" Haste glittering nations, tenants of the air, 

 Oh, steer from hence your viewless course afar ! 

 If with soft words, sweet blushes, nods, and smiles, 

 The three dread sirens lure you to their toils. 

 Limed by their art, in vain you point your stings. 

 In vain the efforts of your whirling wings. 

 Go, seek your gilded mates and infant hives. 

 Nor taste the honey — only purchased with your lives ! " 



This question of the relations between insects and plants was 

 not, however, followed up in Dr. Darwin's time ; but in our own 

 day, after having lain dormant for nearly a century, it has again 

 been taken up, and has become a very important feature of botan- 

 ical study. Like all other scientific c|uestions, it has gained in 

 breadth as well as in depth, and enters not only into the discus- 

 sion on the fertilization of plants, but has also had a great deal 

 of interest added to it since the attention of scientific jDcople was 

 attracted by the so-called insectivorous or carnivorous plants. 

 The Sikncs, however, have been rather neglected in this respect, 

 and Mr. Charles Darwin, our celebrated contemporary, does not 

 seem to have made any special use of the facts relating to them, 

 in his works on the relations of plants to insects. 



As Nuttall remarks, our flower usually opens in the evening ; 

 but in shaded woods it often remains open till near noon of the 

 day following. 



Of the common name, Campion, which S. sfcllata enjoys, in 

 addition to that of Catchfly, several explanations are given, but 

 all are equally unsatisfactory. One theory is that it is derived 

 from the Latin cainpics, a field, in allusion, as Don says, to the fact 

 that one of the species is " a pest in the fields." Dr. Prior sug- 

 gests that it may be from " campionc, a battle-field, from having 

 been used in chaplets with which champions in the public games 



