THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 235 



contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are ferti- 

 lized by Insects,' 1 have given a good deal of attention to the 

 subject, and examined a great number of insects whose 

 mouths have been thus encumbered, and hope before long to 

 print rather a long paper on fertilizing insects in the 

 'Zoologist,' as there certainly is not space enough for it in 

 the 'Entomologist.' In the meantime I may give a i'ew 

 particulars here, leaving the general subject for a future 

 paper. It appears from Darwin's work that scarcely any 

 flower possesses the power of fertilizing itself; probably it 

 will hereafter be shown that no flower or species has this 

 power in perpetuity ; but this subject need not be discussed 

 here. It will be sufficient to explain that in Orchids there 

 are but two stamens, and each of these contain one pollen- 

 mass, or pollinium, as it is called by Darwin. The moths, 

 attracted by the sweet scent of the flowers, and being thereby 

 apprised of the nectar-banquet contained in the flower, often 

 crowd around it, and, in their eagerness to get at the sweets, 

 press their heads against the stamens, and thus the cuticle of 

 tlie anther probably gets ruj^tured by the pressure, and the 

 pollinium then comes out of its retreat, and being furnished 

 at the lower extremity with a circular adhesive disk, — very 

 much like those round pieces of wetted leather which boys 

 play with on the flag-stones of our pavements, — these disks 

 attach themselves to the head, eyes, or mouth of the moth, 

 and, thus fixed, they project like little clubs, and are carried 

 to auother flower, to which the moth flies as soon as it has 

 rifled the sweets of the first, and to this second flower it 

 imparts the pollen it had taken from the first. The bright 

 colours of flowers are given them to attract butterflies, bees, 

 and flies, by day ; the sweet scents of flowers are given them 

 to attract moths by night: and, as though conscious of this 

 duty, a great number of flowers — such for instance as the 

 "night-flowering stock," the "night-flowering Cereus," the 

 "night-smelling evening-primrose," &c. — only emit their 

 fragrance when moths are on the wing. This is the case 

 with Orchids, — those which have large, bright and beautiful, 

 scarlet and yellow and jnuple flowers, and no scent — attract 

 day-flying insects; those which have minute, and green or 

 dull-coloured flowers have no beauty, but are almost invariably 

 sweet-scented, and thus attract those n)olhs which fly by 

 night. Mr. Darwin has mentioned a specimen of Caradrina 



