92 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



profusely illustrated, by Sir John Lubbock, on " British 

 Wild Flowers considered in relation to Insects." In it, 

 referring to my friend the honey-bee, whose self-told 

 story may be read in " the Autobiography of an Acorn,* 

 he says, " To them that is the bees we owe the beauty 

 of our gardens and the sweetness of our fields. To them 

 flowers are indebted for their scent and colour ; nay, for 

 their very existence. Not only have the present shape 

 and outlines, the brilliant colours, the sweet scent, and 

 the honey of flowers been gradually developed through 

 the unconscious (?) selection exercised by insects; but 

 the very arrangement of the colours, the circular bands 

 and radiating lines, the form, size and position of the 

 petals, are all arranged with reference to insects, and in 

 such a manner as to insure the grand object which these 

 visits are destined to effect." 



Nor do these remarks in the least help the hypothesis 

 of evolution, in my humble opinion. The variety and 

 beauty to which the author of the book refers are simply 

 and solely caused, not by any artistic or creative act on 

 the part of the visiting fly, but by the interchange of 

 pollen from one species to another, thus improving but 

 never exchanging or advancing one plant to the genus of 

 another plant. Our well-known author would appear 

 to confirm this in his saying, "Every one who has 

 watched flowers and has observed how assiduously they 

 are visited by insects, will admit that these insects 

 must often deposit on the stigma pollen brought from 

 other plants, generally those of the same species ; for it 

 is a remarkable fact that in most cases bees confine them- 

 selves in each journey to a single species of plant ; " 

 and, in examining our prepared specimens of honey-bees 

 for microscopical examination, in their stomachs you 



* Sunday School Union. 



