CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN. 3gl 



a few distinguished foreigners. In 1862 the " Fer- 

 tilization of Orchids " was published, which re- 

 quired ten months of labor. In this work Darwin 

 took the utmost delight. He wrote to a friend 

 who had sent him some of these flowers : " It is 

 impossible to thank you enough. I was almost mad 

 at the wealth of Orchids. ... I never was more 

 interested in any subject in my life than in this of 

 Orchids." The peculiarities of the flowers therein 

 described, as Darwin says, " transcend in an incom- 

 parable manner the contrivances and adaptations 

 which the most fertile imagination of man could 

 invent." 



In the " Origin " he describes an orchid which 

 " has part of its labellum or lower lip hollowed out 

 into a great bucket, into which drops of almost 

 pure water continually fall from two secreting 

 horns which stand above it ; and when the bucket 

 is half full the water overflows by a spout on one 

 side. The basal part of the labellum stands over 

 the bucket, and is itself hollowed out into a sort of 

 chamber with two lateral entrances; within this 

 chamber there are curious fleshy ridges. The most 

 ingenious man, if he had not witnessed what takes 

 place, could never have imagined what purpose all 

 these parts serve. But Dr. Criiger saw crowds of 

 large humble-bees visiting the gigantic flowers 

 of this orchid, not in order to suck nectar, but to 

 gnaw off the ridges within the chamber above the 

 bucket ; in doing this they frequently pushed each 

 Other into the bucket, and, their wings being thus 



