HOW THE COLLECTION WAS FORMED 3 



savants may be very foolish indeed — when Darwin pro- 

 nounced that if a certain moth, which he had never seen nor 

 heard of, were to die out in Madagascar, the noblest of the 

 Angraecums must cease to exist. To the present day no one 

 has seen or heard of that moth, but the humour of the asser- 

 tion is worn out. Only admiring wonder remains, for we 

 know now that the induction is unassailable. Upon such 

 chances does the life of an orchid depend. It follows that 

 insects must have been well established before those plants 

 came into being ; and insects in their turn could not live 

 until the earth had long "borne fruit after its kind." 



' But from the beginning of things until this century, 

 until this generation, one might almost say — civilised man 

 could not enjoy the boon. . . . We may fancy the delight 

 of the Greeks and the rivalry of millionaires at Rome had 

 these flowers been known. "The Ancients" were by no 

 means unskilful in horticulture — witness that astonishing 

 report of the display at the coronation of Ptolemy Phila- 

 delphus, given by Athenaeus. But of course they could not 

 have known how to begin growing orchids, even though 

 they obtained them — I speak of epiphytes and foreign species, 

 naturally. From the date of the Creation — which we need 

 not fix — till the end of the Eighteenth Century, ships were 

 not fast enough to convey them alive ; a fact not deplorable 

 since they would have been killed forthwith on landing. 



' ... So I return to the argument. It has been seen 

 that orchids are the latest and most finished work of the 

 Creator ; that the blessing was withheld from civilised man 

 until, step by step, he gained the conditions necessary to re- 

 ceive it. Order and commerce in the first place ; mechanical 

 invention next, such as swift ships and easy communica- 

 tions ; glass-houses, and a means of heating them which could 

 be regulated with precision and maintained with no excessive 

 care ; knowledge both scientific and practical ; the enthusiasm 



