108 FLOWER STRUCTURE 



(1918) there were no fewer than six young ones the largest 

 number I have seen.' 



So there is a seamy side, after all, to the character of 

 ray well-loved owls ! The disappearance of our pigeons 

 may have been owing to graver circumstances than 

 their dissatisfaction with the rations. Who among us 

 can lay hand on heart and declare that he has never 

 strayed from the strict path of virtue ? Woodcocks, in 

 the three south-western counties of Scotland, enjoy a 

 statutory close-time from 1st February to 30th Sep- 

 tember in each year, but it would be rash to back the 

 chance of survival for the woodcock that rises out of 

 the heather before the ordinary sportsmen in the 

 month of August. 



XXVI 



No details in the anatomy of flowers are more 

 Flower fascinating than the various devices for 

 structure securing cross-fertilisation by insect visitors. 

 Upon the effective working of these devices depends in 

 great measure the persistence of any particular race, 

 and it is impossible to calculate how many species have 

 become degenerate or actually extinct, owing to defects 

 in their reproductive machinery. 



In some families, the immense one of Barberry for 

 instance, the object is secured through the irritability 

 of the stamens. Poke a stalk of grass gently into the 

 flower of any barberry ; directly it touches the base of 

 a stamen, the anther is brought down quickly upon the 

 intrusive object. If that object be an insect in search 

 of nectar, and if the anther be ripe, the visitor receives 



