HABENARIA 55 



precisely resembling the fringed petals with its long legs." 

 Did the spider not know by experience that it could weave 

 a web to good advantage where the insects come so gladly; 

 and did the caterpillar know by that accumulated experience 

 of his progenitors that constitute instinct that the colojir 

 of the orchid's delicately screening fringe matched his own 

 juicy skin and protected him from the birds that might 

 be snapping insects around this attractive shrine ? Who can 

 tell ? No one, unless he will sit in the woods' secret places 

 and watch and watch until the actual doings of the tiny 

 things are revealed. Could Thoreau have had the eyes and 

 pen of Mr. Gibson he would have suggested philosophies 

 enough to us to even allow insects a theology. 



But what the insect does is this. He creeps up the fringe 

 straight to the middle of the blossom, for as Gray says, 

 "The nectary can be approached only from the front, the 

 sides being guarded by a broad, thick shield on each side — 

 the arms of the stigma much developed — above supporting 

 the anther, while its inner and concave face bears the re- 

 markably long and narrow viscid discs. Posteriorly on its 

 upper margin a sort of cellular crest is developed." These 

 discs are in just the right position to receive the pollen 

 masses as they come in borne on the head of an insect, who 

 has been obliged to dive head first straight into the first 

 flower he visited, and who now must enter again in the same 

 way with his burden. Just as in so many other orchids, the 

 pollen masses, as soon as they are withdrawn from the 

 anther above, are depressed into just the right position to 



