258 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



would crawl up the spike and get out again by the 

 same way as they got in, never troubling themselves 

 any more about such useless flowers. Here, however, 

 the curious lobster-pot hairs for the first time come 

 into play. They act, in short, exactly like a common 

 eel-trap. The flies walked in easily enough, the way 

 the hairs naturally pointed ; but when they try to 

 walk out again, they find their way completely 

 blocked by the chevaux-de-frise of stiff bristles. 

 There is nothing that beats a crawling insect like a 

 thicket of hairs ; he finds it as impossible to creep up 

 against their grain as we ourselves find it to force our 

 way through a tropical jungle of cactus and prickly 

 spurges. So there they wait perforce for a time in 

 durance vile, wandering up and down helplessly 

 among the lower flowers, and effectually brushing 

 off against them every single grain of pollen which 

 they brought on their legs or breasts from the last 

 flower they visited. 



At last, in a day or so, the young berries begin to 

 swell slowly, and all the pistil-bearing flowers show 

 by this quickening action that they have been duly 

 and properly fertilised. Then comes the turn of the 

 stamens. One after another they open their little 

 double pollen-sacs, and shed their golden powder 

 down upon the wings and bodies of the small flies 



