Wild Flowers as They Grow 



pair of riders — the pollinia from the flower it has 



just visited. Like a circus horse collecting riders, 



so the butterfly or moth, as the case may be, may 



collect pair after pair of pollinia on its proboscis. 



Thus one poor individual (a Caradrina) was found 



to be carrying no fewer than eleven pairs, one behind 



the other, some full of pollen grains, others nearly 



emptied by the successive stigmas it had visited 



during its joumeyings. 



No fewer than twenty- three kinds of moths and 



butterflies have been caught visiting this orchid. 



It is easy to know where they have been from the 



tell-tale and characteristic pollinia they carry. It 



is wholly dependent upon them, as we have seen, for 



the carriage of its poUen from flower to flower, and 



how well they co-operate was pointed out by Darwin, 



who counted forty-eight out of forty-nine flowers 



on a single spike that had been visited. " These 



facts," he said, " show how well moths and butterflies 



perform their office of marriage priests." And the 



result of their kind offices is the production of vast 



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