284 FERTILISATION [18/6. 



C. Darwin to H. Midler. 



Down, August 7, 1876. 



.... I was much interested by your brother's article on 

 Hedychium ; about two years ago I was so convinced that 

 the flowers were fertilized by the tips of the wings of large 

 moths, that I wrote to India to ask a man to observe the 

 flowers and catch the moths at work, and he sent me 20 to 

 30 Sphinx-moths, but so badly packed that they all arrived in 

 fragments ; and I could make out nothing. . . . 



Yours sincerely, 



CH. DARWIN. 



[The following extract from a letter (Feb. 25, 1864), to 

 Dr. Gray refers to another prediction fulfilled : 



" I have of course seen no one, and except good dear 

 Hooker, I hear from no one. He, like a good and true friend, 

 though so overworked, often writes to me. 



" I have had one letter which has interested me greatly, 

 with a paper, which will appear in the Linnean Journal, by 

 Dr. Criiger of Trinidad, which shows that I am all right about 

 Catasetum, even to the spot where the pollinia adhere to the 

 bees, which visit the flower, as I said, to gnaw the labellum. 

 Criiger's account of Coryanthes and the use of the bucket-like 

 labellum full of water beats everything : I suspect that the 

 bees being well wetted flattens their hairs, and allows the 

 viscid disc to adhere."] 



C. Darwin to the Marquis de Saporta. 



Down, December 24, 1877. 



MY DEAR SIR, I thank you sincerely for your long and 

 most interesting letter, which I should have answered sooner 

 had it not been delayed in London. I had not heard before 

 that I was to be proposed as a Corresponding Member of 

 the Institute. Living so retired a life as I do, such honours 



