10 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



and the bee, fly, and spider orchids are familiar examples 

 of a converse resemblance. Birds, butterflies, reptiles, and 

 even fish, seem to bear in certain instances a similarly 

 striking resemblance to other birds, butterflies, reptiles and 

 fish, of altogether distinct kinds. The explanation of this 

 matter which " Natural Selection " offers, as to animals, is 

 that certain varieties of one kind have found exemption 

 from persecution in consequence of an accidental resem- 

 blance which such varieties have exhibited to animals of 

 another kind, or to plants ; and that they were thus pre- 

 served, and the degree of resemblance was continually 

 augmented in their descendants. As to plants, the ex- 

 planation offered by this theory might perhaps be that 

 varieties of plants which presented a certain superficial 

 resemblance in their flowers to insects, have thereby 

 attracted .such insects, and have so been helped to pro- 

 pagate their kind, the visit of certain insects being useful 

 or indispensable to the fertilization of many flowers. 



We have thus a whole series of important facts which 

 " Natural Selection " helps us to understand and co- 

 ordinate. And not only are all these diverse facts strung 

 together, as it were, by the theory in question ; not only 

 does it explain the development of the complex instincts 

 of the beaver, the cuckoo, the bee, and the ant, as also the 

 dazzling brilliancy of the humming-bird, the glowing tail 

 and neck of the peacock, and the melody of the night- 

 ingale; the perfume of the rose and the violet, the 

 brilliancy of the tulip and the sweetness of the nectar 

 of flowers; not only does it help us to understand all 

 these, but it also serves as a basis of future research and 

 of inference from the known to the unknown, and guides 

 the investigator to the discovery of new facts which, when 



