90 



SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



Darwin, Asa Gray, 

 Miiller, Grant Allen, 

 and others, we have 

 such contrivances and 

 dodges arrayed in an 

 almost encyclopaedic 

 form. 



Tropical countries 

 everywhere afford il- 

 lustrations of flowers 

 which seem to have 

 of set purpose laid 

 themselves out to 

 attract, not insects, 

 but birds ! Hence 

 the large sizes to 

 which such flowers 

 attain, and the ex- 

 traordinary mechan- 

 ism they display. 

 The humming-birds 

 perform their func- 

 tion for flowers in 

 many of the tropical 

 parts of America, the 

 sun-birds, perhaps, in 

 Southern Africa, and 

 the brush-tongued 

 parrakeets in Australia. If we study such structures 



Fig. 42. — Ladies' Tresses Orchid {Spiranthes 

 autumftalis). 



