90 NATURE STUDIES. 



jonquils of our flower gardens, have pure white petals, 

 -and possess a very powerful jasmine odour. Such 

 white, strong- scented flowers always depend, in part 

 at least, upon night-flying moths, which are largely 

 -attracted by perfume ; and, of course, no colour can 

 be so well perceived in the dusk of evening as. a pure 

 glossy white. Hence the difference in hue between 

 the two kinds. At the same time, the southern 

 varieties are also fertilised by day-flying bees, and for 

 these the frill of the crown is prettily fringed with 

 brilliant orange. Each insect selects the plant that 

 suits it best, and their joint selection has thus pro- 

 duced the snowy petals and exquisitely-coloured cup 

 of the garden jonquil. 



STRANGE SEA MONSTERS. 



BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR. 



THE sea-serpent has long been regarded by most 

 persons as simply a gigantic fraud. Either the ob- 

 ject which appeared like a sea-serpent was something 

 altogether different a floating tree entangled in sea- 

 weed, the serpentine outline of distant hills half lost 

 under a scudding haze, a row of leaping porpoises, or, 

 if a single living creature at all, then one of a known 

 species, seen under unusual and deceptive conditions 

 or else the circumstantial accounts which could not 



