112 THE EVOLUTIONIST AT LARGE. 



passed in this respect throughout all nature 

 by the still larger and more magnificent 

 tropical species which owe their fertilisation 

 to humming-birds and brush-tongued lories. 



Is it not a curious, yet a comprehensible 

 circumstance, that the tastes which thus show 

 themselves in the development, by natural 

 selection, of lovely flowers, should also show 

 themselves in the marked preference for 

 beautiful mates ? Poised on yonder sprig of 

 harebell stands a little purple winged butter- 

 fly, one of the most exquisite among our 

 British kinds. That little butterfly owes its 

 own rich and delicately shaded tints to the 

 long selective action of a million generations 

 among its ancestors. So we find throughout 

 that the most beautifully coloured birds and 

 insects are always those which have had most 

 to do with the production of bright-coloured 

 fruits and flowers. The butterflies and rose- 

 beetles are the most gorgeous among insects : 

 the humming-birds and parrots are the most 



;eous among birds. Nay more, exactly 



