CHAPTER JIT. 
ON THE RELATION OF ANTS TO PLANTS. 
Ir is now generally admitted that the form and colour, 
the scent and honey of flowers, are mainly due to the 
unconscious agency of insects, and especially of bees 
Ants have not exercised so great an influence over the 
vegetable kingdom, nevertheless they have by no 
means been without effect. 
The great object of the beauty, scent, and honey 
of flowers, is to secure cross fertilisation; but for this 
purpose winged insects are almost necessary, because 
they fly readily from one plant to another, and gener- 
ally confine themselves for a certain time to the same 
species. Creeping insects, on the other hand, naturally 
would pass. from one flower to another on the same 
plant; and as Mr. Darwin has shown, it is desirable 
that the pollen should be brought from a different 
plant altogether. Moreover, when ants quit a plant, 
they naturally creep up another close by, without any 
regard to species. Hence, even to small flowers, such 
as many crucifers, composites, saxifrages, &c., which, 
as far as size is concerned, might well be fertilised by 
ants, the visits of flying insects are much more advan- 
