172 Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



had deep markings at the back, just where the perianth lobes 

 begin to separate, but where they still overlap one another. 

 No insect, I said, would be such a fool as to go prodding at 

 the back when so wide a front door was provided. I had 

 plenty of time to theorize. It was holiday time in a region 

 where our next-door neighbours were over the hill two miles 

 away. So I sat on the stoep and lazily condemned Prof. 

 Henslow's theory. A single fact, I severely reminded my re- 

 luctant fancy, was enough to upset any hypothesis. While I 

 sat, mentally active but bodily motionless, there flashed quite 

 close to me one of those animated streaks of God's brightest 

 colours that we call sugar-birds — as brilliant as America's in- 

 tensest humming-bird, only more of it. I was delighted, for 

 my nearness of sight prevents much acquaintance with wild 

 birds. This little thing evidently took me to be part of the 

 stoep furniture, and by absolute stillness I encouraged the 

 delusion. From his coign of vantage he made a brief survey 

 of the garden, with a determination of breakfast written on 

 every feather of him. But breakfast on what ? In the West, 

 Nature supplies them abundantly with Proteas, but of this 

 order I think there is only a little Leucospermum growing in 

 the Transkei. What was it to be ? Honeysuckle, or Tecomaria 

 capensis ? Habemus utrumque as Horace said of certain 

 human nectars. Birdie did not leave me long in doubt. 

 Down he swooped on the spikes of Gladiolus — there were 

 some twenty of ttiem — and he sampled every open flower on 

 every spike. And he attacked them at the back, clinging to 

 the column of the spike and working his way downwards from 

 side to side so as to miss nothing. His curved beak entered 

 the flower just where the lobes part, and scraped down the 

 tube till it found the honey. Now, if you look at the inside of 

 the Gladiolus, you will find that the purple mark goes all the 

 way down the path of the beak ; and in some of the flowers 

 this purple path is not visible from without, but only the spot 

 at the lobe-parting. How about the theory now ? Shall we 

 say the flower spontaneously advertises in front for insects and 

 at the back for birds? Or did it just blush at being so 

 tickled ? 



