Guests Welcome and Unwelcome 235 



are those of the palms, and the ' pitchers ' with which 

 many plants are furnished likewise afford insects in 

 abundance. 



Whether the birds go for nectar or for insects, it is 

 all the same so far as the plant is concerned, for in 

 neither case can they help coming in contact with the 

 stamens and getting their heads and beaks dusted with 

 pollen. 



The Marcgravia, for instance, is a plant which grows 

 a circle of flowers like the lamps of an inverted can- 

 delabrum. From the centre of tn's circle hang a 

 number of pitchers filled with a sweet, sh liquid, which 

 attracts swarms of insects. These, n their turn, 

 attract, not only humming-birds, but a variety of 

 others which cannot capture their prey without brush- 

 ing against the hanging stamens of the bell-flowers. 



In Labuan large flocks of starlings are similarly 

 attracted to a flower with brilliant scarlet blossoms ; 

 and in the Malay and Molucca Islands much pollen- 

 carrying is done by the little brush-tongued lories, 

 small parrots, with unparrot-like tongues, which are 

 long, flexible, moist and hairy, and thus well adapted 

 for collecting honey from the tubes of the many large 

 blossoms which they visit. 



Bees, butterflies, moths, birds — these are the most 

 conspicuous of the ' under-gardeners,' to whom is en- 

 trusted the important work of fertilization ; but there 

 are others equally useful in their way, though their 

 sphere of operations is less extensive. Even the wasps 

 do something, for, in the absence of fruit, they suck 

 flowers, as Gilbert White remarked, especially those of 

 the ivy and small umbelliferous flowers ; they are 

 especially attracted by the red and yellow blossoms of 



