128 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



sweetness. It is all effected in the simplest manner 

 through the great law of natural selection, here seen 

 in operation in its severe simplicity ; for the flowers 

 of those plants which present the greatest facilities 

 for fertilization get their seeds set, and so ensure the 

 continuance of their species, while the unsuitable 

 and unaccommodating kinds remain barren and 

 are gradually weeded out. In a babel of tongues, 

 and since first he found a voice, the poet has sung 

 of the loves and sorrows of mankind, but nature 

 still waits for him to interpret her heart ; if he ever 

 learns to do so, there will be a new song in his mouth, 

 for he will have a wonderful theme. 



But nothing is perfect in this world, and I may, 

 perhaps, be permitted a moment's digression here 

 to refer to an instance on record of a wicked attempt 

 to frustrate the design in all this adaptation of means 

 to an end. My attention was first directed to the 

 subject on the occasion of a letter which appeared 

 in print some years ago referring to the export to 

 New Zealand of two nests of our ordinary English 

 humble-bees, in the hope that their descendants 

 would come to the rescue of the colonists, who 

 found that the red clover introduced from Europe 

 would not set its seed and propagate its species in 

 their country in the absence of the kindly help of the 

 little attendants for whom it provides its honey. 

 The writer expressed the hope that the humble-bees 

 exported were not of a variety which he had observed 

 had fallen into bad habits, in that the individuals, 

 instead of obtaining the honey from the red clover in 

 the manner intended by nature, had learnt to take 

 unlawful possession of it by snipping a hole through 

 the base of the tube containing it, without, of course, 



