PREFACE. 



IT is not without much diffidence that I venture on 

 the present publication. For though as an entomo- 

 logist I have necessarily been long familiar with our 

 common wild plants, I had made no serious study of 

 Botany until recent researches brought prominently 

 before us the intimate relations which exist between 

 flowers and insects. My observations and notes on 

 this subject were originally prepared with the view 

 of encouraging in my children that love of natural 

 history from which I myself have derived so much 

 happiness, but it was suggested to me that a little 

 book such as the present might perhaps be of use 

 to others also. 



Sprengel, in his admirable work, "Das entdeckte 

 Geheimniss der Natur," published as long ago as the 

 year 1793, was the first to show how much plants are 

 dependent on the visits of insects, and to point out 

 that the forms and colours of flowers are adapted to 

 ensure, and profit by, those visits. His work, how- 

 ever, did not attract the attention which it deserved, 

 and our knowledge of the subject made little pro- 

 gress until the publication of Mr. Darwin's researches, 

 to which I shall continually have occasion to refer. 

 Dr. Hermann Muller in his "Die Befruchtung der 

 Blumen durch Insekten," has brought together 

 the observations of previous writers, and added 



