224 DARWIN'S LETTERS TO R. TRIMEN 



may rely on my statements, for they have been verifyed 

 [sic]. Linum perenne agrees with your Oxalia. I am 

 also very glad indeed to hear about the Peaches, — the 

 more so as it is an exotic in S. Africa. — I am going 

 in a weeks time to Malvern for a month to try and get 

 a little strength, and when there I will probably draw up 

 a notice for Gardener's Chronicle on your peach case.' — 

 I daily expect proofs of your paper on Disa ; a rough 

 woodcut is made. — You must not waste time in sending 

 me many specimens of Orchids in spirits, for I declare 

 I do not know whether I shall ever have time to work 

 up mass of new matter already collected on Orchids. 

 It is capital sport to observe and a horrid bore to pub- 

 lish. — It pleases me to read your admiration on my 

 beloved Orchids. — I quite agree they are intellectual 

 beings ! By the bye, I believe I have blundered in 

 Cypripedmm ^ ; Asa Gray suggested that small insects 



' Darwin had suggested in relation to fertilization by moths of 

 Orchids which seemed to secrete no nectar, that the insects 

 might possibly obtain palatable juices by perforating the softer 

 tissues of some parts of the flower. Trimen informed him, as 

 bearing on this suggestion, of two good-sized Noctuid moths 

 (Egybolis vaillantina, StoU, and Achaea chamaeleon, Guen.), 

 abundant in Natal, where both were styled ' Peach Moth ' — 

 though absolutely different in appearance — because they sucked 

 peaches (both ripe on the trees and when fallen). Trimen caught 

 the latter in the act, and found that they had no difficulty in 

 piercing the peach-skin with their sharp and strong haustellum. 

 The observation is quoted by Darwin in Fertilisation of Orchids 

 (1877), 40. F. Darwin later published an account of the similar 

 behaviour of a much larger moth of the same tribe which was 

 accounted a nuisance in Northern Australia owing to its piercing 

 and sucking oranges ! He showed how the proboscis in this moth 

 was armed near the tip with cutting and lacerating processes. 

 — On the Structure of the Proboscis of Ophideres fullonica, an orange- 

 sucking Moth {Quarterly Journ. of Microscopical Science, N.S., xv. 

 384), The number (LX) containing the paper appeared in Oct., 

 1875, and it is ,a curious coincidence that the same organ of the 

 same species was briefly described and well figured almost simul- 

 taneously by Kunckel in the Compfes Eendus for Aug. 30, 1875. 



* When Darwin wrote the first edition of Fertilisation of Orchids 

 (1862), he misunderstood the mechanism of Cijpripedium. In the 



