382 FRUCTIFICATION OF FLOWERS. 



subservient to their use. Hence SIR J. E. SMITH 

 believes the honey to be intended, by its scent, to allure 

 these venial panders to the flowers, and thereby 

 shows how highly he estimates their value to ve- 

 getation. See his Introduction to Botany. In 

 the same work, the author observes that SPRENGEL 

 has ingeniously demonstrated, in some hundreds 

 of instances, how the corolla serves as an attrac- 

 tion to insects, indicating by various marks, some- 

 times perhaps by its scent, where they may find 

 honey, and accommodating them with a conve- 

 nient resting-place or shelter while they extract 

 it. This elegant and ingenious theory receives 

 confirmation from almost every flower we ex- 

 amine. Proud man is disposed to think that 



' Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,' 



because he has not deigned to explore it ; but we 

 find that even the beauties of the most sequestered 

 wilderness are not made in vain. They have 

 myriads of admirers, attracted by their charms, 

 and rewarded by their treasures, which would be 

 as useless as the gold of a miser, to the plant 

 itself, were they not the means of bringing insects 

 about it." 



Thus the bee, by settling upon and collecting 

 honey from a thousand different flowers, is 

 thereby assisting the great purpose of vegetable 

 reproduction, at the same time that the loads she 



