36 Flowers and their Unbidden Guests. 



food, whilst they would rather die of hunger than 

 touch its blossoms. Herbivorous mammals also appear 

 to have a distaste for flowers. Our cattle and sheep 

 pass over the most beautiful blossoms, not only not 

 attracted but apparently repelled by their sweet smell. 

 I have many a time noticed cattle, whilst grazing in 

 open glades, snuffle at the richly-scented blossom 

 of Pyrola uniflora, Platanthera bifolia, Gymnadenia 

 odoratissima, Oonvallaria majalis, and Viola odorata, 

 but never have I seen them eat these flowers. So again 

 in the autumn, when cattle are driven to their pastures 

 through meadows bright with countless blossoms of 

 Colehicum, Parnassia, and Euphrasia, we can easily 

 observe how, as they go, they snatch the sprouting 

 leaves^of grasses and of other plants from among the 

 flowers, but never touch the flowers themselves.-' Again 

 I have offered cattle fresh petals of honeysuckle, 

 mallows, lilies, dahlias, and pinks, and they have let 

 them lie untouched. In the valley of Non Ziegen I 

 once noticed that the foliage of Cytisus alpinus was 

 eaten with the greatest eagerness, while the thick clus- 

 ters of blossoms were left unmolested. Another time, 

 in a place where chamois had lately been feeding, I 

 found the leaves of Nigritella angustifolia, Phyteuma 



^ [Mr. Darwin {Forms of Flowers, p. 6) quotes the following 

 passage from his grandfather's Loves of the Plamts, written in 

 1790 : — " The flowers or petals of plants are perhaps in general 

 more acrid than their leaves ; hence they are much seldomer eaten 

 by insects." — Bditob.] 



