158 THE EVOLUTIONIST AT LARGE. 



eyes, ears, or any other sense, it would hardly 

 be possible to doubt that other allied insects 

 possessed the same faculty in a high degree ; 

 and, as Dr. Bastian says, there seems good 

 reason for believing that all the higher insects 

 are guided almost as much by smell as by 

 sight Now it is noteworthy that most of 

 those flowers which lay themselves out to at- 

 tract bees and butterflies are not only coloured 

 but sweetly scented ; and it is to this cause 

 that we owe the perfumes of the rose, the 

 lily-of-the-valley, the heliotrope, the jasmine, 

 the violet, and the stephanotis. Night- 

 flowering plants, which depend entirely for 

 their fertilisation upon moths, are almost 

 always white, and have usually very powerful 

 perfumes. Is it not a striking fact that these 

 various scents are exactly those which human 

 beings most admire, and which they artificially 

 extract for essences ? Here, again, we see 

 that the aesthetic tastes of butterflies and men 

 decidedly agree ; and that the thyme or laven- 

 der whose perfume pleases the bee is the very 



