Scientific Societies. 29 



his clients from the accusation of hopocrisy. By dint of observa- 

 tion he discovered that these orchids do produce honey, not 

 indeed outside, but underneath the outer skin of the nectary, whicli 

 was so thin as to be easily pierced by the proboscis of the moth. 

 Was this then a mere superjinons trouble which the flower caused 

 to the insect? Not so. The gum on the viscid disc of these 

 plants requires a trifle longer to get dry than that of other species, 

 and the time consumed by the moth in penetrating to the nectary 

 was quite sufficient to allow the guni to dry properly on its pro- 

 boscis. Well, perhaps you ask, what then ? what was the use of 

 this discovery ? Now I despise a mind that can only estimate the 

 value of a discovery, not by its wonder and beauty, but by the 

 possibility of its being turned into bread. But such discoveries 

 have their use. I will give you an instance. When the common 

 white or Dutch clover was imported into New Zealand, the 

 colonists found with amazement that it produced no seed. Why 

 was this ? Simply because they had no hive-bees in New Zealand, 

 and the white clover is fertilized exclusively by the hive-bee. Red 

 clover grew there because that is fertilized by the humble-bee, and 

 never touched by the hive-bee, which indeed has too short a pro- 

 boscis to reach its nectary. By a peculiar mechanism of the flower 

 of the red clover, the pollen reaches the stigma by the push given 

 to the stamen by the weight of the humble-bee resting on the keel 

 of the flower. Agriculturists had noticed what men of science 

 had not, and when the hive-bee was introduced into New Zealand, 

 the white clover produced seed and grew. 



Well now, gentlemen, however much I may have seemed to 

 wander, I hope that you will, every one of you, have seen the point 

 at which 1 have been distinctly and steadily aiming — I mean the 

 intention T have had of proving to you the utility of science, its 

 splendid progress, the fact that its secrets have been open secrets 

 to the observant eye, and the fact that yet the discovery of no one 

 of them has been due to mere accident, but to patient and con- 

 tinuous labour — to labour so simply and entirely directed by the 

 pure love of truth, that it has been often devoted to inquiries 

 apparently futile and uninteresting. The inferences from these 

 facts are obvious, viz., that science requires admiration, hope, and 

 love; — strength, faith, and patience. Clearly therefore there is no 

 such thing as successful playing with science. Science, indeed, 

 may stoop to be gay and playful ; as the trunk of the elephant can 

 either pick up a needle or crash down the bole of a forest tree, so 

 science can either make a child's plaything like " the little marvel," 

 or the magic plane, or pui a girdle in a few seconds round the 

 globe But though she may delight one and all with her innocent 

 enchantuients, she opens her rich unknown treasures only to the 



