LIFE HISTORY OF BRITISH FLOWERING PLANTS 75 
with birds, beasts, and insects, an Hs “A ee fertilization, 
its nocturnal, even, in some its nal slu mbers, or its 
biennial, or perennial). Having. in an introductory chapter, dis- 
the si 
cussed significance of all these features, Lord Avebury then 
proceeds to go ono the British Flora, following the arrange- 
ment of Bentham’s well-known Handbook, describing in some 
detail the Sharactoristies which each plant exhibits, and adding 
explanations as to how these may be supposed to have been a 
duced and preserved by Natural Selection, on account of so 
benefit which they ensure to their possessor 
he a - should a be exceedingly useful to young botanists 
of the newer and more interesting school, who, not content with 
identifying en cataloguing species, ‘‘like postage-stamps,” en- 
deavour to learn ething more about the laws which govern 
plant-life, and in some measure to extend our knowledge of plant- 
history. How far our efforts have sabiowed any solid advance in 
this direction is es question, and as we turn over Lord 
Avebury’s pages are more and more impressed with the truth 
of his own deonbyAtion i in another work, that those who know most, 
either of zoology or botany, are least inclined to fancy that we 
know much. 
To { take a few examples which at once suggest themselves, the 
Sweet Flag (Acorus Calamus), though flowering abundantly, never 
produces ripe seed in Europe, tho yugh it does in Asia (p. 392). 
of blooming, from which it derives no practical benefit? It is 
Miieeated that the failure to fructify is due to the want of insects 
capable of fertilizing it,—which, however, does not answer the 
regards it as native in e of our eastern counties Eviden 
we are very far from having fathomed a problem which lies at the 
very root of vegetabl same problem is likewise sug 
gested by the Lime-tree (p. 121). This not only flowers profusely, 
but employs every art of scent and structure to attract insect 
visitors, and to secure, by means of them, the supreme benefit of 
cross-fertilization. Yet the result, at least with us, is prac- 
tically nil,—* The Lime scarcely ever ripens seeds in our country.” 
et here is surely an instance in which Natural Selection nies 
“a0 iota beneath a tree in flower. We must add that there 
is ambiguity of language here, which might lead the 
iaiantiotn reader to suppose that e Lime- tree with which we 
* (But see Journ. Bot., 1871, 163.—Ep. Journ. Bon) 
