ON THE CHALK DOWNS in 



blossom is astonishingly like a brown bumble-bee sitting 

 on a three-petalled pink flower. The mimic bee is even 

 more like one other insect a certain spotted beetle common 

 in Switzerland, of which the wing-cases have just the same 

 mottled colours. It is interesting to bring home a spike of 

 bee orchis, and keep it in a glass of water in a bright and 

 airy place, to watch it fertilising itself in the way which 

 excited Darwin's apprehension and interest in its future. A 

 day or two after the pink petals unclose and show the bee 

 we can see, where the insect's head ought to join the thorax 

 but the resemblance does not hold good in so much detail 

 the two anthers gradually uncurl from their protecting 

 pent-house, and arch over till their pollened tips adhere to 

 the sticky plate of the stigma. Here they remain, and 

 presently wither, with their work done. Darwin wished to 

 live long enough to witness the gradual extinction of the 

 bee orchis under this mischievous system of inbreeding ; but, 

 as he himself pointed out, it is probable that even the nor- 

 mally self-fertilising plants are occasionally cross-fertilised by 

 insects, and thus have their vitality reinforced. The appear- 

 ance and disappearance of this orchis often presents curious 

 and fascinating points. A new plantation of pines on a 

 limestone slope in Gloucestershire in a year or two blotted 

 out a colony which had thriven for many seasons. Thirty 

 or forty years hence, when those pines should be ripe for 

 felling, it will be curious to see whether the bee orchises 

 punctually emerge and begin to bloom again in the sunshine 

 as if there had been no interruption. 



' O mihi tarn longae maneat pars ultima vitae ' 



here again we feel Darwin's desire for more years. It is 

 strange to see the first appearance of this curious flower in 

 a new and unexpected situation, as when a single spike 



