Ixxxvi REPORT—1874. 
have collected. We cannot, without shutting our eyes through fear or pre- 
judice, fail to sce that Darwin is here dealing, not with imaginary, but 
with true causes; nor can we fail to discern what vast modifications may be 
produced by natural selection in periods sufficiently long. Each individual 
increment may resemble what mathematicians call a “ differential” (a quan- 
tity indefinitely small); but definite and great changes may obviously be pro- 
duced by the integration of these infinitesimal quantities through practically 
infinite time. 
If Darwin, like Bruno, rejects the notion of creative power acting after 
human fashion, it certainly is not because he is unacquainted with the num-~ 
berless exquisite adaptations on which this notion of a supernatural artificer 
has been founded, His bock is a repository of the most startling facts of 
this description, Take the marvellous observation which he cites from Dr. 
Criiger, where a bucket with an aperture, serving as a spout, is formed in 
an orchid. Bees visit the flower: in eager search of material for their combs 
they push each other into the bucket, the drenched ones escaping from their 
involuntary bath by the spout. Here they rub their backs against the viscid 
stigma of the flower and obtain glue; then against the pollen-masses, which 
are thus stuck to the back of the bee and carried away. ‘‘ When the bee, so 
provided, flies to another flower, or to the same flower a second time, and is 
pushed by its comrades into the bucket, and then crawls out by the passage, the 
pollen-mass upon its back necessarily comes first into contact with the viscid 
stigma,” which takes up the pollen; and this is how that orchid is fertilized. 
Or take this other case of the Catasetum. <‘‘ Bees visit these flowers in order 
to gnaw the labellum; in doing this they inevitably touch a long, tapering, 
sensitive projection. This, when touched, transmits a sensation or vibration 
to a certain membrane, which is instantly ruptured, setting free a spring, by 
which the pollen-mass is shot forth like an arrow in the right direction, and 
adheres by its viscid extremity to the back of the bee.” ‘In this way the fer- 
tilizing pollen is spread abroad. 
lt is the mind thus stored with the choicest materials of the teleologist 
that rejects teleology, seeking to refer these wonders to natural cases. 
They illustrate, according to him, the method of nature, not the “ technic ” 
of a man-like Artificer. The beauty of flowers is due to natural selection. 
Those that distinguish themselves by vividly contrasting colours from the 
surrounding green leaves are most readily seen, most frequently visited 
by insects, most often fertilized, and hence most favoured by natural selection. 
Coloured berries also readily attract the attention of birds and beasts, which 
feed upon them, spread their manured seeds abroad, thus giving trees and 
shrubs possessing such berries a greater chance in the struggle for existence. 
With profound analytic and synthetic skill, Mr. Darwin investigates the 
ceell-making instinct of the hive-bee. His method of dealing with it is re- 
presentative. He falls back from the more perfectly to the less perfectly 
developed instinct—from the hive-bee to the humble bee, which uses its 
own cocoon as a comb, and to classes of bees of intermediate skill, endea- 
vouring to show how the passage might be gradually made from the lowest 
to. the highest. The saving of wax is the most important point in the 
economy of bees. Twelve to fifteen pounds of dry sugar are said to be 
needed for the secretion of a single pound of wax. ‘The quantities of nectar 
necessary for the wax must therefore be vast; and every improvement of 
constructive instinct which results in the saving of wax is a direct profit 
to the insect’s life. The time that would otherwise be devoted to the making 
of wax is now devoted to the gathering and storing of honey for winter food, 
