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PLANTS AND INSECTS AS MARVELS OF 
CORRELATION. 
(Wire Lanrern Views.) 
By Rev. F. BALLARD, M.A., B.Sc. F.G.8. 10th Feb., 1908, 
The Lecturer said that from time immemorial flowers had 
been objects of attraction to old and young, rich and poor alike, 
and it had been the custom, for long ages, to speculate on the use 
of plants, it being generally conceded that they were intended for 
food, medicine, or pleasure. During the past century great pro- 
gress had been made. Science had divided and sub-divided the 
subject so much, that it became more and more clear, that no one 
man was competent to grasp even one of those sub-divisions. If 
& man was to become acquainted with bacteriology, which was a 
minor sub-division of botany, he must start early in life and lay 
aside all other studies, and give himself wholly to it. If we face 
the facts we have to own, sooner or later, that there is a side of 
the universe and the creation around us that we can only call 
dark, mysterious, and inexplicabie. That we must be content to 
leave. The Twentieth Century began with this advantage, that 
the method of induction was perfectly established. They could 
never go back to the old simple deduction process. They must 
face the facts, whether they agreed with their previous notions or 
not. In this way they were brought to appreciate the correlation 
of plants and insects, in the double relation which proceeded 
equally from each member of the series, and were fraught with a 
meaning and an advantage to both, fitting one into the other, 
as convex and convave. 
It had been said that— 
‘« Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.’ 
Why waste? And the answer was, because the genus homo 
was not there to sniff and appreciate it. As if it were reserved 
for the human species to be the only appreciator of the fragrance 
and the beautiful on the planet. That conceit had been taken 
out of man. They now knew perfectly well that it did not follow 
that their sweetness was ‘ wasted,” or that ‘they blushed 
unseen ’”’ because men were not there to look upon them. All 
the time they had been appreciated and enjoyed by creatures 
capable of enjoying themselves. 
