EVENING FLOWERS. 293 



The great object of nature in all these curiously 

 minute arrangements is to secure the production 

 of healthy seed, and so to carry on the life of the 

 various species of plant from one generation to 

 anotlier. In many kinds of plants the pollen and 

 the seed-capsules are borne side by side in the same 

 flowers ; but even then care is particularly taken 

 that they do not both mature simultaneously, or 

 else some other device is introduced by means of 

 which the chief end of nature — cross-fertilization 

 of the seeds in one blossom by the pollen from 

 another — is duly secured. In these common 

 white campions the means adopted is a simpler 

 one ; the pollen-bags are placed in separate flowers 

 from the seeds, so that it is absolutely impossible 

 for the capsule to get accidentally dusted over by 

 the falling grains, as sometimes occurs in other 

 cases. Indeed, a few kinds of plant almost invari- 

 ably thus fertilize their own seeds ; but then they 

 are, with very few exceptions, the weediest and 

 most degenerate of all flowers. All the beautiful 

 and conspicuous ornaments of our gardens are 

 deliberately designed to encourage the visits of 

 bees or butterflies, unless they be of tro[)ical ori- 

 gin, in which case they are sometimes specially 

 intended to attract the eyes of humming-birds 

 and honey-sucking paroquets. Such southern 

 birds, with their long bills and flickering tongues, 

 are quite as well adapted as moths or bees to 



