SUMMER FLOWERS m 



the exception often proves the rule. Thus Alfred Russel 

 Wallace, still happily the Nestor of the evolutionist camp, 

 pointed out long ago that there were few bright blossoms in 

 the Galapagos Islands (600 miles west of South America), and 

 that there were few insects. But in Juan Fernandez, 400 

 miles off Chili, there are several very conspicuous flowers, 

 though there are no bees, only four moths, and one butterfly. 

 There are, however, crowds of humming-birds, which are 

 pollinators of high degree. 



In studying a problem like the inter-relations of flowers 

 and insects, it is necessary to pursue a rigorous analytic 

 method, abstracting off first one factor and then another, 

 inventing super-ingenious experiments to discover whether 

 the bee comes to the blossom because the blossom is 

 purple or because it is bright, because it is coloured or 

 because it is fragrant, because it is fragrant or because 

 it has lots of nectar, and so on. This is inevitable, 

 and it is thus that science is built up. We have a lurking 

 suspicion, however, that the scientific inquirer is apt 

 sometimes to end in fallacy by projecting his analytic inlook 

 upon Nature again. To return to a concrete case, we mean 

 that a foxglove flower is a complex of stimuli, and that the 

 bee which climbs up its spire is a complex of sensory recep- 

 tivities. In all likelihood, the bee visits the foxglove on a 

 bank and leaves out all others, not because the foxglove has 

 a subtle pinkish-purple colour, but because it is a foxglove. 

 It is the tout-ensemble that counts. But it is difficult, some- 

 how, to make good science of this. 



It would be unpardonable to quit the subject of 

 summer flowers even in these brief glimpses without 

 coming back to reality the gorgeous pageant of Flora's 

 Feast. The tide which sets in with a rush in Spring reaches 

 its high -water mark in Midsummer. Play gives place to 

 industry, and the extravagance of youth to the strenuous- 



