318 THE COLOURS OF ANIMALS 



Darwin's work has been extended by others, and 

 especially by Hermann Miiller. As the result of these 

 investigations it is now well known that the fertilisa- 

 tion of flowers has been largely carried on by insect 

 agency, and that insect preferences have decided as 

 to the colours and patterns which prevail among the 

 wild flowers of any country.^ This is now generally 

 admitted, and as Mr. Wallace himself points out, ' we 

 have abundant evidence that whenever insect agency 

 becomes comparatively ineffective, the colours of the 

 flowers become less bright, their size and beauty 

 diminish, till they are reduced to such small, greenish, 

 inconspicuous flowers as those of the rupture-wort 

 {Herniaria glabra) y 



But if this conclusion be accepted, if the beauty 

 of flowers has followed so completely from insect 

 selection, are we not compelled to admit that insects 

 possess an aesthetic sense — a sense which could dis- 

 criminate between the slightly different attractions 

 displayed by suitors, just as we all admit that it has 

 discriminated between the slightly different attractions 

 displayed by flowers ? 



' Consult TM Fertilisation of Flowers, by Hermann Miiller, 

 English translation by D'Arcy W. Thompson : London. Also British 

 Wild Flowers in relation to Insects, by Sir John Lubbock: Nature 

 Series. 



« Loc. cit. p. 332. 



