Botany and Zoology. 



guiding a thread into the fine eye of a needle. 



parts act. Let a moth insert it3 proboscis (an 



frequently the flowers are visited by Lepidoptera 



surface of the suspended saddle- 



press the lip of the rostellum. This being 

 contact with the now naked and sticky under- 



poiiinia, is removed. Almost instantly, as soon as the saddle is expc 



the bristle. When the pollinia are pulled out by their caudicles, by a pair of 

 pincers, so that the saddle has nothing to clasp, I observed that the tips curled 

 inwards, so as to touch each other in nine seconds, and in nine more seconds 

 the saddle was converted, by curling still more inwards into an apparently 

 solid ball. # * * Of course this rapid clasping movement helps to fix the 

 saddle with its pollinia upright on the proboscis, which is very important ; but 

 the viscid matter, rapidly setting hard, would probably suffice for this end, and 

 the real object gained is the divergence of the pollinia. These being attached 

 to the flat top or seat of the saddle, project at first straight up, and are nearly 

 parallel to each other ; but as the flat top curls round the cylindrical and thin 

 proboscis, or round a bristle, the pollinia necessarily diverge. As soon as the 

 saddle has clasped the bristle and the pollinia have diverged, a second move- 

 •nent commences, which, like the last, is exclusively due to the contraction of 



the saddle-shaped disc of membrane This second movement is the same 



as that in 0. mascula and its allies, and causes the divergent pollinia, which at 

 Jj]^t projected at right ano-les to the needle or bristle, to sweep through nearly 

 f degrees towards the lip of the needle, so as to become depressed, and 

 finally to lie in the same plane with the needle. In three specimens this 

 second movement was effected in from 30 to 34 seconds after the renioval of 

 ine polhnia from the anther-cells, and, therefore, in about 15 seconds after the 

 saddle had clasped the bristl " 

 jjjj.lhe use of this double i 



'between the g " 'V" '^ ' 



J pollinia wil 



3 guiding ridges of 

 1 [as the accompanying figures show] e: 



} side, and the end of the oth< 

 tne same moment strikes ao-alnst the stigma on tlie opposite side. Thei 

 '?mas are so viscid, that tSey rupture the elastic threads by which tl 

 ckets of pollen are bound together; and some dark green grains will 1 



white stigmatic 



Orchid ii 



est admiration at the perfec 



I fertilized. , , . .- 



1 no other plant, or indeed in hardly any animal, can adap ations 

 to another, and of the whole to other organized beings widely rem* 

 ile of Nature, be named more perfect than those P>-;«ented by 

 sum them up. As the flowers j 



'■'^'ted both by day and nicrht-flving Lepidoptera, I do not think it is fanciful to 

 - tliat the bright purple tfnt (whether or not speciaUy developed for this 

 -> attracts thi day-fliers, and the strong foxy odor the night-fliers. The 

 - pal and the two upper' petals form a hood, protecting the anUier and 

 ^uuuc surfaces from the weather. The labellum is developed rnto a 



