352 IMPREGNATION OF THE SEED. CHAP. VII, 



which must be surmounted by extraordinary 

 means. 



Or insects What then are the means instituted by nature for 

 byThe 6 effecting the impregnation of Hermaphrodites so 

 nectar. circumstanced ? The true reply to this inquiry 

 seems to have been first suggested by Koelreuter, 

 namely, the agency of insects ; and has been since 

 confirmed by the more leisurely observations of 

 Spregnel, who found that the pollen in the above 

 case is very generally conveyed from the anther to 

 the stigma through the instrumentality of Bees, 

 though sometimes through that of insects peculiar 

 to a species. The object of the insect is the dis- 

 covery of honey, in quest of which, whilst it roves 

 from flower to flower and rummages the recesses of 

 the corolla, it unintentionally covers its body with 

 pollen, which it conveys to the next flower it visits, 

 and brushes off as it acquired it by rummaging for 

 honey; so that part of it is almost unavoidably 

 deposited on the stigma, and impregnation thus 

 effected. Nor is this altogether so much a work of 

 random as it at first appears. For it has been ob- 

 served that ven insects, which do not upon the 

 whole confine themselves to one species of flower, 

 will yet very often remain during the whole day 

 upon the species they happen first to alight on in 

 the morning. And their agency is also completely 

 secured, from the necessity they are under of pro- 

 curing food ; though nature in her care for the im- 

 pregnation of the vegetable has not only lodged a 



7 



