70 SPECIES NOT 



catch snipes. 4. Certain plants excrete a 

 nectar which is greedily sought after by insects. 

 Therefore these insects would carry away the 

 pollen to other flowers, which would transmit to 

 their seedlings the nectar-secreting power; and 

 those individuals which excreted most nectar, 

 would, in the long run, gain the upper hand. 

 If the plant were, under some new conditions, 

 to lose one of its organs, more or less impor- 

 tant, then the insect would carry away the 

 tendency to transmit flowers with only a pistil 

 or a style, and so produce dioecious plants. 5. 

 Some of the nectar-feeding insects, as the 

 wild bee is known to do, might bore holes into 

 the bases of the flowers, to get the juice by a 

 shorter road than inserting their tongues; and 

 "I see no reason to doubt that an accidental 

 deviation in the size and form of the body, or 

 in the curvature and length of the proboscis, 

 etc., far too slight to be appreciated by us, 

 might profit a bee or other insect, so that an 

 individual so characterized would be able to 

 obtain its food more quickly, and so have a 

 better chance of living, and leaving descendants !" 

 (Page 94.) 6. The tubes of the corolla of 

 the common red and incarnate clover differ in 

 length, so that the hive bee can only get nec- 

 tar out of, the incarnate clover, not out of 

 the red, which is visited by the humble bee 

 alone. Thus it might be of advantage to the 

 hive bee to have a longer tongue; or if the 

 humble bee were to grow scarce, it might be 



