304 BOTANY. [Ch. XVL 



glands are congenitally united into a 6addle-shaped organ, 

 which has great power of movement, and seizes hold of a bristle 

 (or proboscis) in an admirable manner, and then another 

 movement takes place in the pollen masses, by which they are 

 beautifully adapted to leave pollen on the two lateral stigmatio 

 surfaces. I never saw anything so beautiful." 



In June of the same year he wrote : — 



" You speak of adaptation being rarely visible, though 

 present in plants. I have just recently been looking at the 

 common Orchis, and I declare I think its adaptations in every 

 part of the flower quite as beautiful and plain, or even more 

 beautiful than in the woodpecker." * 



He wrote also to Dr. Gray, June 8, 1860 : — 



" Talking of adaptation, I have lately been looking at our 

 common orchids, and I dare say the facts are as old and well- 

 known as the hills, but I have been so struck with admiration 

 at the contrivances, that I have sent a notice to the Gardeners* 

 Chronicle." 



Besides attending to the fertilisation of the flowers he was 

 already, in 1860, busy with the homologies of the parts, a 

 subject of which he made good use in the Orchid book. He 

 wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker (July) : — 



" It is a real good joke my discussing homologies of Orchids 

 with you, after examining only three or four genera ; and this 

 very fact makes me feel positive I am right ! I do not quite 

 understand some of your terms ; but sometime I must get you 

 to explain the homologies; for I am intensely interested in 

 the subject, just as at a game of chess." 



This work was valuable from a systematic point of view. 

 In 1880 he wrote to Mr. Bentham : — 



" It was very kind in you to write to me about the Orchideae, 

 for it has pleased me to an extreme degree that I could have 

 been of the least use to you about the nature of the parts." 



The pleasure which his early observations on Orchids gave 

 him is shown in such passages as the following from a letter to 

 Sir J. D. Hooker (July 27, 1861) :— 



" You cannot conceive how the Orchids have delighted me. 

 They came safe, but box rather smashed ; cylindrical old 

 cocoa- or snuff-canister much safer. I enclose postage. As an 

 account of the movement, I shall allude to what I suppose is 

 Oncidium, to make certain, — is the enclosed flower with crum- 

 pled petals this genus ? Also I most specially want to know 

 what the enclosed little globular brown Orchid is. I have 



* The woodpecker was one of his stock examples of adaptation. 



