340 NATURE STUDIES. 



have been really subordinate to the great change 

 which was simultaneously going on in the mechanism, 

 for ensuring fertilisation. Slowly the blossoms altered 

 to the bilateral shape they adapted themselves by 

 the bee's unconscious selection to the insect's form. 

 The uppermost sepal grew into the hood, so arranged 

 that the bee must get under it in order to reach the 

 long nectaries containing their copious store of honey. 

 At the same time the bee must brush against the 

 stamens, and cover his breast with a stock of adhesive 

 pollen-grains. When he flies away to the next flower 

 he carries the pollen with him ; and as he rifles the 

 nectaries in the second blossom, he both deposits 

 pollen from the last plnt upon the sensitive surface 

 of the carpels in this, and also collects a fresh lot of 

 pollen to fertilize whatever other flower he may next 

 favour with a call. The increased certainty of fertili- 

 sation thus obtained enables the plant to dispense with 

 some of the extra carpels which its buttercup ances- 

 tors once possessed ; and by lessening the number to 

 three, it manages to get the whole set impregnated at 

 a single visit. But, as three seeds would be a small 

 number to depend upon in a world of overstocked 

 markets and adverse chances, it makes up for the 

 diminution of its carpels by largely increasing the 

 stock of seeds in each. 



Thus the whole shape and arrangement of the 

 monkshood bear distinct reference to the habits and 

 tastes of the fertilising bees. It is a mountain plant 

 by origin, belonging to a tribe which took its rise 



