LIFE-HISTORY OF THE HERB ROBERT 117 
of self-pollination. It was, however, along time before 
I succeeded in getting any positive evidence of 
its occurrence. During June and July, 1916, I pro- 
tected some flowers from visitors, and I examined 
their stigmas for pollen without finding any. I saw 
them wither, shrivel and drop off, and I began to 
think that self-pollination did not take place spon- 
taneously, or, in other words, that there was no 
mechanism in the flower itself for bringing it about 
without the help of an outside agent; but “ never” 
is one of those dangerous words that the Nature- 
student should hardly ever use. The next year I 
repeated these experiments, but later on in the 
season, and it was not until after the middle of August 
that I noticed for the first time in one of my protected 
flowers that two of the stamens, instead of shedding 
their anthers, had moved towards the centre and 
placed them and some of their grains on to the 
stigmas. Later on in the same month I found several 
flowers in my garden which had not been protected, 
in the same condition. 
Pollination is, however, one thing and fertilisation 
another, and although the latter usually takes place 
after the former, it does not do so invariably. Out of 
five protected self-pollinated flowers that I observed 
closely only two set any seed; in the other three 
pollination was apparently not followed by fertilisa- 
tion, for instead of the ovaries swelling the flowers 
withered and dropped off. On the other hand, the 
seed from the two ripe fruits appeared to be quite 
normal, and I obtained seedlings from them during 
the autumn of 1917. 
These observations are, of course, upon a scale 
far too small to be of much value, but it is at any 
