Who painted the Flowers? 25 



tion which is within the reach of all bear out the 

 assertion that all which there is in flowers is "arranged 

 with reference to the visits of insects, and in such a 

 manner as to ensure the grand object which these visits 

 are destined to effect " ? J 



The theory, I repeat, is that every variation which has 

 been perpetuated has been so perpetuated because it 

 served to*attract insects, which have in their turn served 

 to propagate the variety. But, in the first place, if this 

 be true of colour, how about form ? This is a most 

 important factor in the beauty of flowers. " Everybody 

 knows," writes Mr. Grant Allen, 2 "that flowers are 

 rendered beautiful by their shapes, by their perfumes, 

 and above all by their colours." And Sir John Lubbock, 

 in the passage already cited, includes "the shape and 

 outlines " among the features which have been developed 

 through the selection of insects. But how can the form 

 conduce, or be imagined to conduce, to the advertise- 

 ment of honey-stores within ? In a broad way, certain 

 shapes of blossoms may help a bee or a butterfly to find 

 where the honey is more readily, or to get at it more 

 easily. But, to say nothing of such fantastic growths as 

 the Butterfly Orchis or the Monk'shood, how can the 

 artistic finish of the edge of a petal or the curve of grace 

 and beauty introduced in the outline of a cup do any- 

 thing to allure honey-seekers ? Or, letting the flowers 

 alone, how can this agency account for the graceful shapes 

 of leaves ? 



Moreover, there is a large class of plants which 

 admittedly owe nothing to insects, the anemophilous or 

 wind-fertilized flowers, and the large order of Cryptogams, 

 ferns, mosses, and the like. It is generally assumed 

 on the utilitarian hypothesis that where colour can do no 

 positive good it cannot exist, and that its absence, in the 

 case of the plants indicated, is a proof of the general 



1 Dr. Asa Gray pertinently remarks that all writers have to agree 

 in speaking of "arrangements," "adaptations," "contrivances." 

 and the like, in this connexion. 



2 The Colours of Flowers, p. I. 



II.* 



