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38 CHELTENHAM COLLEGE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 
quote Wallace) ‘ we should expect that those groups of plants which 
are adapted for both cross- and self-fertilisation, which have showy 
flowers and possess great powers of seed-dispersal, would be the most 
abundant and the most widely distributed ; and this we find to be the 
case, the Composite possessing all these characteristics in the highest 
degree,” being the most generally abundant group of plants with con- 
spicuous flowers in all parts of the world. 
Next, as to the possibilities of practical observation ; and here I 
must warn you that it is one thing to examine flowers, find out the 
mechanisms they possess, which must certainly be arranged to suit 
the visits of insects, and quite another to find the insects at their 
work. In the first place, the number of days in an ordinary English 
summer, when insects are thoroughly hard at work, is few ; and then 
insects have an unpleasant habit of flying away just at the critical 
moment of an observation. But much can be done by observing con- 
siderable patches of plants. I have already referred to the study of 
rows ofseedlings, which are just beginning to flower, before they have 
been removed to their destination by the gardener, and a hayfeid on 
rough ground offers great opportunities: in this way I have studied 
the geraniums and clovers. But of course one must not expect to see 
too much. One of the most beautiful contrivances described in Dar- 
win’s fertilisation of Orchids, is that by which the pollinia of the 
Pyramidal Orchid are detached from the flower and fixed to the pro- 
boscides of bees or moths ; but although he had taken moths with as 
many as seven pollinia attaceed, in the course of twenty years he 
had never been fortunate enough to catch an insect in the act of 
detaching one. 
Lastly, what a wonderful evolution of flower and insect we have! 
Flowers in their efforts to ensure economical fertilisation began to de- 
‘velop hairs to keep off the rain: this protected the honey as well as 
the pollen, and consequently insect visits became more numerous. 
But small insects by crawling indiscriminately about, wasted pollen, 
cand so some flowers began to develop tubes too long for their short 
‘lips. But the bees with their tendency to variation, and consequently 
developing powers, developed longer and longer tongues as the flowers 
advanced. Again, the bees noticed that the flowers of a bluish colour 
generally had the most honey, and so began to prefer blue ; the flower 
became more blue, and altered his arrangements to suit the bee, setting 
up guides and resting places, so the bee’s tongue got even sharper 
and longer, and the flower more tubular and bluer, till at last the per- 
fect hive bee and gentian were formed. Of course, the principle of 
