230 Modern Entomology. (April, 
for research. This is evinced in a striking manner in Sir 
J. Lubbock’s work, which calls attention to a class of phe- 
nomena that have, till lately, escaped common observation. 
It is familiarly known that plants in general, and flowers 
in particular, are necessary to the existence of a large pro- 
portion of the insect world. Honey constitutes the food of 
probably all butterflies and moths when in their mature 
state; of many bees, both social and solitary; of a multi- 
tude of Diptera, and even of certain ‘beetles, such as the 
pretty black and yellow-banded Tvichius fasciatus, which, 
from its colour, its general hairiness, and its habit of haunt- 
ing flowers, is often mistaken for a bee. 
But it has been, till lately, little suspected that the inter- 
dependence is mutual, and that without the visits of inse¢ts, 
a vast number of flowers would be incapable of fertilisation, 
and would consequently become extinét. Few persons are 
ignorant that flowers are the reproductive organs of plants; 
indeed, we are sometimes afraid lest the prurient prudish- 
ness of modern times may pronounce them an offence to 
delicacy, and hand them over to some self-constituted 
authority for ‘‘suppression.” In some species—in analogy 
to animals—the male and female flowers are respectively 
assigned to different individuals. Thus all the specimens 
of Aucuba Faponica existing in England happened to be 
females, and they consequently never produced their bril- 
liant scarlet berries, till a male tree was brought from 
Japan by Mr. Robert Fortune. In other cases—as in the 
cucumber and the vegetable marrow—there are male and 
female flowers on every plant. Lastly, in the majority of 
species, each flower is hermaphroditic, containing both the 
male organs or anthers, and the female, or pistil. In all 
these cases the question arises, how is the pollen needful 
for fecundation to be transported from the anthers to the 
pistil? In some cases this is effected by the wind. But in 
other instances the structure of the flower renders this 
utterly impossible. Even in the case where the stamens 
and pistil are in the same flower, there is what seems very 
like an elaborate arrangement to prevent self-fertilisation. 
Sometimes the stru¢ture of the parts renders this result 
practically impossible. Sometimes the anthers and _ pistil 
do not come to maturity at the same time. There is, there- 
fore, need for some special agency to transport the pollen 
from one flower to the pistil of the other flowers of the same 
species, and thus ensure the fecundation of the seed. This 
purpose is effected by insects, which, flying from flower to 
flower, convey the pollen adhering to their bodies. Attention 
