AuGCST 1, 1888.] 



- KNO^ATLEDGE ♦ 



223 



where the bright colours are present (the distribution being 

 effected by animals). 



The colours of flowers have been shown by the researches 

 of Sprengel, Fritz, Hermann, ililler, Darwin, Lubbock, 

 and Wallace to be necessary (or rather to have become 

 necessary) for the attraction of certain species of insects by 

 which the pollen may be transferred from the stamens (of 

 one flower) to the pistil (of another) and (cross) fertilisation 

 efiiected. Mr. Grant Allen, in his chai'ming little book on 

 the " Colours of Flowers," has advanced and .supported by 

 very striking evidence the interesting theory that the colours 

 of flowers range in order of development : 1. From white 

 found in flowere " which lay themselves open for fertilisation 

 by miscellaneous small flies : " 2. to yellow found in flowers 

 which depend on small beetles; and 3. to red, purple, Klac, 

 and blue found in flowers " which specially bid for the 

 favour of bees and butterflies." Blue seems to be the 

 highest development of all ; but in ca-ses of retrogression 

 we find the direction of change altered. In other cases, 

 where night insects are to do the work of fertilisation, we 

 find white, not as a token of inferiority or degeneration, but 

 as the most suitable colour for that special purpose. Some 

 flowers, fortunately few in number, have a Uvid red colour 

 resembling that of dead meat, by which (as by their un- 

 pleasant odour) they attract the admiring attention of flesh 

 flies. 



Lucidly, as Sir J. Lubbock notes, and has proved, the 

 tastes of bees and butterflies, the most important among the 

 fertiUsers, are akin to ours, not only as to odour and taste, 

 but as to colour ; otherwise we may be sure flowei-s could 

 neither smell so sweetly nor be so beautifully coloured as 

 most of them are, nor secrete so pleasant a product as that 

 from which bees make their honev. 



AMERICANISMS, 



FARMER JOHS'S SOLILOQUY. 



HIS little poem is worth careful study, as 

 an example of the use of Americanisms in 

 association with true poetry. The ex- 

 pressions seem vulgar and commonplace 

 to English ears, but the language is that 

 of a class, and is not exaggerated or 

 coarsened. Humour and pathos are as 

 eii'ectively combined as in Carleton's baUads.] 



1. 

 I mout as well acknowledge, 'taint no use o' beatin' round, 

 I've done a heap o' thinkin', plowin' up this faUer ground, 

 An' suthin's been a painin' an' achin' me like sin — 

 I reckoned 'twas dyspepsy or malary creepin' in. 



2_ 

 At last I got my dander up, an' to myself, sez I, 

 The biggest fool in natur's him that tells hisself a lie : 

 I've been lettin' on 'tis malai-y, an' my stummick, when I 



know 

 It's my conscience that's a hurtin' an' worryin' me so. 



I've been a shirkin' this here thing for thirty year or more. 

 An' I orto had this shakin' up an' settlin' down afore. 

 I've been honest fur as payin' goes, not a penny do I owe. 

 But the kind o' cheatin' that I done, was the kind that 

 didn't show. 



i. 

 My mind goes back to Hanner, when I fetched her here a 



bride ; 

 No apple-bloom was sweeter, an' she nussled to my side 

 Like she thought she had a right to, an' could trust me 



without fear 

 For the love I never hinted at for more'n thirty year. 



There was churnin', bakin', bUin', there was nussin' an' the 



rest, 

 From long afore the sun riz 'till he slumbered in the west. 

 An' when the rest of us was done, an' lollin' round on 



cheers, 

 Hanner was recuperatin' with her needle an' her shears. 



6. 

 But when the life was ebbin' from that faithful, patient 



heart, 

 I had to face the music — I hadn't done my part ; 

 And I couldn't help a thinkin', watchin' out that weary 



Hfe, 

 That there's other ways o' killin' 'xcept a pistol or a knife. 



It sounds like sacreligion, but I knew jist what she meant 

 As I whispered, '• Fly to meet me when my aii-thly life is 



spent " — 

 " I'm tired, .John, so tired, but I've alius done my best, 

 An' I may feel more like flyin' when I've had a spell o' 



rest." 



THE DONNELLY CIPHER DECIPHERED. 



VXY seem to be impressed with the array of 

 figures advanced by Mr. Donnelly in sup- 

 port of his preposterous cipher system, and 

 supposed to represent the chances against 

 his results being casual. Now that he has 

 disclosed his secret, as he absurdly calls it, 

 giving the key-number of his cipher, the 

 problem is supposed to be reduced to one of 

 probabilities ; and although the fuU value of the odds as he 

 presents them may be regarded as questionable, yet those 

 who are ignorant of the laws of probability imagine that a 

 certain portion of those odds must still exist in favour of 

 the reality of his cryptogram, and a very small proportion 

 would still amount to an overwhelming balance of 

 probabilities. 



As a matter of fact, Mr. Donnelly's discussion of the 

 question of chances shows that he is utterly ignorant of the 

 laws of probability. He claims odds in favour of his 

 cryptogram which are absolutely unreal and imaginary. 

 He adds and multiplies these imaginar}- chances in ways 

 which impress the ignorant (and those ignorant of chance 

 laws are many) with the idea that he is making out a strong 

 case, but impress those who know the laws of probability 

 with the sense of the amazing presumption of the man in 

 pretending to touch weapons of whose use he is absolutely 

 itmorant. That the man who could not understand Bacon's 

 five-letter cipher, even after he had read Bacon's sufficiently 

 lucid account of it, should claim to have discovered and 

 interpreted a cipher which, according to his own account, 

 Bacon had very carefully concealed, was preposterous 

 enough. But that a man whose every remark about the 

 laws of chance shows that he knows nothing about them 

 should claim to urge the calculation of chances in favour of his 

 foolish cipher-theory, is a still more stupendous example of 



