Address of A. R. Wallace at the Glasgow Meeting. 365 
and more complex than could have been anticipated. Whole 
genera and families of plants have been so modified, as first to 
attract, and then to be fertilized by, certain groups of insects, 
and this special adaptation seems in many cases to have deter- 
It is also known that some species of plants can be fertilized 
any seeds are, no doubt, carried by oceanic currents, others 
probably by aquatic birds. Mr. H. N. Moseley informs me 
that the albatrosses, gulls, puffins, tropic birds, and many 
others, nest inland, often amidst dense vegetation, and he be- 
lieves they often carry seeds, attached to their feathers, from 
island to island for great distances. In the tropics they often 
hest on the mountains far inland, and may thus aid in the dis- 
tribution even of mountain plants. Insects, on the other hand, 
are mostly conveyed by aérial currents, especially by violent 
gales; and it may thus often happen that totally unrelated 
plants and insects may be brought together, in which case. the 
former must often perish for want of suitable insects to fertilize 
them. This will, 1 think, account for the strangely fragmentary 
nature of these insular floras, and the great distances that often 
exist between those which are situated in the same ocean, as 
menoptera accompany them, and : 
islands the flora a 2 rs to be ara ae varied, and especially 
