196 OUR INSECT FRIENDS AND FOES 



affixes the hinged pedicle firmly to the insect's 

 body. The insect flies from flower to flower, 

 till at last it visits a female plant : it then inserts 

 one of the pollen-masses into the stigmatic 

 cavity. As soon as the insect flies away the 

 elastic caudicle, made weak enough to yield to 

 the viscidity of the stigmatic surface, breaks 

 and leaves behind a pollen-mass ; then the 

 pollen-tubes slowly protrude, penetrate the 

 stigmatic canal, and the act of fertilization is 

 completed. Who would have been bold enough 

 to have surmised that the propagation of a species 

 depended on so complex, so apparently arti- 

 ficial, and yet so admirable an arrangement?" 

 " Lastly I may be permitted to add that Dr. 

 Criiger, after having carefully observed these 

 three forms in Trinidad, fully admits the truth 

 of my conclusion that Catasetum tridentatum 

 is the male and Monachanthus mridis the 

 female of the same species. He further con- 

 firms my prediction that insects are attracted to 

 the flowers for the sake of gnawing the labellum, 

 and that they carry the pollen-masses from the 

 male to the female plant. He says 'the male 

 flower emits a peculiar smell about twenty-four 

 hours after opening, and the antennae assume 

 their greatest irritability at the same time. A 

 large humble-bee, noisy and quarrelsome, is 

 now attracted to the flowers by the smell, and a 

 great number of them may be seen every morn- 

 ing for a few hours disputing with each other 

 for a place in the interior of the labellum, for the 

 purpose of gnawing off the cellular tissue on 

 the side opposite to the column, so that they 



