IVY IN THE COPSE. 



scent, which seems highly attractive to 

 many carrion flies and other foul feeders. 

 Hence you will find that butterflies seldom 

 or never visit them ; but they are frequented 

 and fertilized by hundreds of smaller insects, 

 for whose sake the copious honey is stored 

 on the open disk, where it is easily accessible 

 to even the stumpiest proboscis. Ivy, in 

 short, is a democratic flower : it lays by no 

 rich store of secret nectar in hidden recesses, 

 like the honeysuckle or the nasturtium, 

 where none but the Norman-nosed aris- 

 tocrats of the insect world can reach it ; 

 it is all for the common plebs. "A fair 

 field and no favour" is the motto it acts 

 upon. When the berries have been thus 

 fertilized, they lie by over winter, slowly 

 ripening and swelling, to blacken at last in 

 the succeeding summer. The ripe fruit is 

 then eaten by birds, such as hawfinches and 

 certain of the thrush tribe, which disperse 

 the hard nut-like seeds undigested. Black 

 or dark blue are rare colours for flowers, 



95 



