definitely awe-inspiring in the pollination-history of the 
orchids when it is understood that to ensure their sexual 
success there has been developed subserviency to two of 
the dominating instincts of animals: the urge of hunger 
and the sexual impulse. 
Before us is a teasing question. It arouses keen curi- 
osity and stimulates the wish to know more than we do 
about the actual history of biological change, not only 
as it relates to the origin of species but to the actual shap- 
ing of flowers. Perhaps it is easy to visualize gradual 
change in form where structures are supposed to be con- 
tinually responding to environmental influences until 
complexity replaces simplicity, but when into the theatre 
of our imagination we usher such organisms as Ophrys 
speculum and Scolia ciliata and command them to play 
out their evolutionary story and exhibit how the duration 
of anthesis has been long enough to bring about the phe- 
nomena we have witnessed, it must always be in the dim 
light of limited understanding. 
Biology is the study of protoplasmic manifestations 
whether these occur in structure or in behavior. Man 
being the only animal trying to explain itself and to as- 
certain the laws of destiny, tries to explain everything 
else. After asking pertinent questions about the obscure 
forces responsible for the wonderfully close association 
between the Ichneumonid wasp and Cryptostylis, Tarl- 
ton Rayment answered: ‘‘Who knows?’’ And that I fear 
will be the answer despite our present knowledge of trop- 
isms and the play of hormones, even should more ven- 
turesome naturalists endeavor to plumb the depths of the 
pseudocopulation mystery. 
It may be that those who would reject the evolution- 
ary approach to an understanding of life and who prefer 
to regard the world as the product of Special Creation 
will lean a little more lightly on human weakness when 
[17] 
