8 Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables 



without seed for that year. But there is something 

 in the envelope that attracts small flies, which crowd 

 into the hood in great numbers. Getting in is easy 

 enough, for, as has been said, the hairs in the neck 

 bend downwards; but getting out is another matter, 

 and the adventurous insects must wait till the opposing 

 hairs wither. By this time the staminate flowers have 

 bloomed, and the pollen therefrom falls on the flies 

 and dusts their backs and legs, and when on being 

 released they proceed to plunge straightway despite 

 experience into another Arum hood, they find the 

 pistillate flowers mature and ready to be dusted with 

 this pollen, thus securing cross-fertilization. 



This is a very pretty and interesting history : and 

 to look at the picture of the Arum which Sir J. 

 Lubbock engraves we should judge it to be very 

 probable. But flowers do not always grow in the 

 fields as they are drawn in books, and if the observer 

 will go out for himself and find an Arum and slice it 

 open with his penknife, he will probably find that 

 there is nothing whatever in the chevaux de frise to 

 hinder any fly from walking out when he likes. The 

 threads are by no means thick set, they twist about 

 and do not run straight, and there is generally plenty 

 of room between their extremities and some portion 

 of the walls. Flies there are generally in plenty, 

 little black flies, so small that it would seem to be 

 a matter of no consequence which way the spikes 

 point, for they could pass between them. The real 

 obstacle to egress is a condition which looks very 

 much like being drunk and incapable. They lie, often 

 many deep, at the bottom, some without any sign 

 of life, many in a limp and languid condition, much 

 like rioters who have broken into a wine-vault. Whether, 

 when they come forth from their confinement, the 

 fresh air, to which they have been so long unac- 

 customed, gives them strength and energy to hunt 

 up another Arum before they get rid of their coat 

 of pollen and Arums do not generally grow very 



