INTELLIGENCE OF FLOWERS 



istence and its growth? One watching us from the height of 

 Mars or Venus, as we exert ourselves to achieve the conquest 

 of the air, might, in his turn, ask: 



"Why those shapeless and monstrous machines, those bal- 

 loons, those aeroplanes, those parachutes, when it were so easy 

 to copy the birds and to supply the arms with a pair of all- 

 sufficing wings?" 



. 23 



To these proofs of intelligence, man's somewhat puerile 

 vanity opposes the traditional objection : yes, they create mar- 

 vels, but those marvels remain eternally the same Each 

 species, each variety has its system and, from generation to gen- 

 eration, introduces no perceptible improvement. It is true that 

 since we have been observing them — that is to say, during the 

 past fifty years — we have not seen the Coryanthes macrantha or 

 the Catasetidcd refine upon their trap : this is all that we can 

 say; and it is really not enough. Have we as much as at- 

 tempted the most elementary experiments; and do we know 

 what the successive generations of our astonishing Bathing- 

 orchid might do in a century's time, if placed in different sur- 

 roundings, among insects to which it was not accustomed? 



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