XVll 



PREFATORY NOTE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION 



The scope of this book on Flower Pollination is so fully explained 

 in the Author's Preface that little need be said by way of Preface to the 

 Translation here presented. Muller's book upon the Fertilization of Flowers, 

 upon which it is based, has been long out of print in English dress, and its 

 place will now be taken by this encyclopaedic work of Knuth. 



The present volume is the first of three comprising the work. It is 

 general and deals with the structure of Flowers and of Insects in relation 

 to Pollination. 



The second volume, now in the press, is special and contains an 

 account of all known observations upon the pollination of the flowers 

 of plants of Arctic and Temperate zones. 



The third volume, published, after the death of Knuth, under the 

 editorship of Dr. Loew, deals similarly with plants from countries outside 

 Europe. 



In this English edition, the appendices of supplementary informa- 

 tion in the original, inseparable from a work published by instalments 

 during some years, will be incorporated in the body of the text, and this 

 first volume contains a noteworthy feature in the Bibliography which 

 includes, combined in one list, all the citations in the original and brings 

 the record notwithstanding the statements on page viii of the Author's 

 Preface down to Jan. i, 1904. The adjustment of this list has been no 

 easy task. The co-operation of Mr. J. M. F. Drummond of Cambridge 

 and of Mr. S. A. Skan of Kew has been enlisted for the clearing up of some 

 difficult points. The burden of revising the references, and of securing 

 uniformity in and of checking the citations has been undertaken by 

 Dr. Fritsch, and it is hoped that the care he has bestowed upon this 

 feature of the volume will make the work more serviceable to readers. 



It remains to state that the translation was begun primarily by 

 Dr. Gregg Wilson. He had accomplished a considerable portion of his 

 task when a call to the Professorship of Natural History in Queen's College, 

 Belfast compelled him to seek relief from it. The Delegates of the 

 University Press were fortunate in being able to entrust the continuance 

 of the translation to the competent hands of Professor Ainsworth Davis of 

 Aberystwyth, who, using as a basis Dr. Gregg Wilson's work, so far as 

 completed, has given the translation the impress of his own qualities. 



I. B. B. 



