28 Scientific Societies. 



Were there not a million chances to one against the same insect 

 visiting these two allied trees at such a distance ? It remained 

 for another, a German botanist, Conrad Sprengel (author of a 

 famous book, " The Discovered Secret of Nature") to prove the 

 part which insects take in the fecundation of flowers, and so to 

 discover another link in the great chain which, with a myriad 

 invisible but indissoluble links, connects the animal with the 

 vegetable creation. With a patience entirely German, he spent 

 whole days in the country, lying beside a flower with his eye fixed 

 upon it. Silent and immovable in a scrutiny which often extended 

 till evening, he would wait till the airy messenger arrived whose 

 movements he meant to watch. After a little preliminary circling 

 and buzzing the insect penetrated the flower, sucked its honey, and 

 flew away. Then Sprengel would look, and see the grains of 

 pollen resting securely on the viscid humour of the stigma, and 

 would go home perfectly contented with his day — one of those 

 " divine souls" not unfrequent among the servants of science, to 

 whom sixteen hours spent silent in the sunlight passed but as a 

 moment when it was a question of observing the marvels of 

 creation, and revealing the laws in accordance with which God 

 has formed its marvellous plan.* It is not often that nature is thus 

 caught at work ; but she was so caught also by Cavanilles, the 

 Spanish botanist, when he " saw grass grow " by applying the 

 micrometic wire of a telescope with a high magnifying power at 

 one time to the swiftly multiplying cells at the point of a bamboo 

 shoot, and at another to the rapidly-unfolding flowering stem of an 

 American aloe. That such noble spirits are not yet extinct may 

 be seen in the charming book on the Fertilization of Orchids by 

 our own great Darwin. I will mention but one of his astonishing 

 discoveries. You are aware that orchids are almost invariably 

 fertilized by insects, which visit them for the sake of their honey, 

 and also that particular insects are often attached to the service of 

 particular plants. There is, however, one species with a very 

 grand looking nectary which was believed to produce no honey, 

 but merely to deceive the bees and moths into visiting it. Mr. 

 Darwin's innate love of truth, and hatred of shams, made him 

 disbelieve this. Man, intelligent, immortal man — man the guiltiest 

 as well as the foremost work of his creator — might wear the mask 

 of the hypocrite, and deceive his neighbour into service which he 

 never intended to requite ; but Darwin would not think so humbly 

 of the fair flowers of the field, nor would he believe that these 

 orchids attracted under false appearances a ministry which they 

 had no intention to requite. And he was soon able to vindicate 



» See Le Maout Lemons de Botanique. 



