26 Who painted the Flowers ? 



theory. But firstly, it is by no means true that colour 

 is absent. The hues of our autumnal fungi are at least 

 as vivid as those of any spring or summer blossoms, 

 and in the large wind-fertilized tribe of the grasses there 

 is great variety and great beauty of colouring, as one 

 may see in any meadow in May or June. But beyond 

 that, and granting for the sake of argument the absence 

 of colour, who can deny the exceeding great beauty of 

 the fronds of a maiden-hair fern or the head of a feather- 

 grass ? Mr Ruskin's exquisite little engraving of "fore- 

 ground leafage" in Modern Painters fills many with 

 wonder and delight, and yet, as he himself tells us, it 

 represents only what any one may see who chooses to lie 

 down on his face in a field in summer ; while in any 

 square yard of vegetation there are more delicate varia- 

 tions on the same theme than any artist but the sun can 

 faithfully reproduce. 



Here then is, at the outset, a difficulty which seems 

 fatal to the theory under examination ; for if there be 

 undoubted facts which the agency of insects can nowise 

 have affected, how can it be assumed that such agency is 

 the only possible explanation of other facts analogous to 

 these? 



Leaving this question suggested by the shape, I come 

 to the colour itself. How far is the theory of insect 

 agency supported by a mere examination of this element 

 of flower beauty prescinding from aught else? That 

 insects, bees especially, can produce very marked varie- 

 gation in the colour of blossoms, no one will deny who 

 has seen the growth of a zebra-like variety of garden 

 Nasturtium (Tropaolum majus) after the bees have been 

 busily working alternately at a bed of maroon-brown 

 and of sulphur-yellow flowers. But how far are we 

 justified in assuming that this has been the sole means 

 of producing the colours that we see ? Those who de- 

 fend such a position assert, as is indeed necessary for 

 their case, that all flowers with conspicuous petals must 

 depend on insects for their well-being, otherwise they 

 would but waste so much of their vital energy on an 



