EVENING FLOWERS. 201 



and lead the inquiring bee with a minimum of 

 trouble to his store of honey. They would, of 

 course, be invisible at night ; and so they are 

 never found on the white or pale yellow nocturnal 

 flowers, which are invariably uniform in color 

 throughout. 



All these minute provisions and adaptations are 

 naturally very convenient for the bee and the 

 moth ; but how, on the other hand, do they bene- 

 fit the flower? We said above that every part of 

 every organism has a purpose to subserve which 

 is immediately useful to the organism to which it 

 belongs; and here we seem ratiier to be pointing 

 out that the flowers are constituted in such and 

 such ways, not for the go(.d of the plant, but for 

 the good of the bee or the butterfly. Neverthe- 

 less, there is an easy way out of this apparent 

 paradox. The arrangement is a nmtual one; the 

 insect does as much for the blossom, in the long 

 run, as the blossom does for the insect. All that 

 the moth wants, of course, is the honey ; but, in 

 securing for himself that sweet nutriment, he per- 

 forms unconsciously a service for the plant of the 

 first importance. Suppose we follow him on his 

 rounds among the common white campions, on a 

 summer evening, and see what advantage the 

 flowers derive from encouraging his airy visits. 

 Attracted by the faint perfume and pale white 

 petals, he settles down, after a minute, on a cam- 



