90 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



Are you tired with our work ? Shall we change the 

 subject, and pass from our examination of the very large 

 family included in Insecta to what is so very intimately 

 connected with it the examination of some of the equally 

 interesting works of God as seen in the stems, leaves, and 

 flowers of our woods and gardens ? 



The relation of insects to plants is one of the most 

 interesting chapters in the study of nature. We owe 

 many variations of flowers and plants, doubtless, to the 

 large tribes of insects who, carrying the pollen grains 

 from one plant to another, produce that charming 

 variety which so beautifully characterizes the vegetable 

 kingdom. 



These visits of insects are chiefly for feeding upon 

 the honey which is found therein, for the extraction of 

 which we have already seen so remarkable a provision 

 is made, in the proboscis or sucking pump. The sweet 

 scent and bright colours are another source of attraction, 

 and "the lines and circles on the corolla guide them to 

 the right spot." * 



Not only for the purpose of producing a variety of 

 changes in the same species of plants, not in the genus, 

 remember: no one but the Creator could do that, any 

 more in plants than in animals; no heartsease, for 

 example, by the instrumentality of an insect, could 

 acquire the stature and property of a sunflower, nor by 

 the visit of a hunible-bee would the red clover become 

 anything else but clover, though without such visit it 

 would be a nothing but leaves ; " not only, I say, are 

 insects useful to plants in the formation of their variety, 

 as in- that wonderful family, orchidacea3, but they are 

 sometimes busily employed in defending the plant upon 

 \\hich they live from the depredations of other insects. 



* Lubbock. 



