230 A NATURALIST' 8 WANDERINOS 



but we may feel sure that a change of form indicates a corre- 

 sponding change of function ; and in discovering its true 

 raison d'etre, the object of our contemplation is invested 

 with a halo of interest which it could not otherwise have 

 possessed. 



The yellow, short-stamened anthers have evidently left their 

 ordinary function of fecundation to become an enticing food-bait 

 to attract insects to the flower, while the long stamens ha.ve 

 varied in form to secure to the utmost their ordinary function 

 by insuring that their pollen shall fecundate not their own 

 but their neighbour's stigrna. This result, however, would be 

 impossible but for the singularly methodical habits which 

 bees have of visiting in a long sequence the same species of 

 flowers.* 



How fitly jointed together all nature hangs ! 



After I had progressed some distance on the morning on our 

 way up, I became aware of two men following us who were not 

 of our party. On inquiry I found that they were Am pat Lawang 

 men going to the mountain to invoke the Dewa. One carried a 

 white pigeon in a cage, and both were dressed with care in their 

 best garments. On arrival at my hut, they adjourned along 

 with my guide to the summit overlooking it. Here they 

 burned benzoin incense to the Dewa, whom they should have 

 invoked by a prayer, but as none of them could "menhadji" 

 this part of the ceremony had perforce to be dispensed with. 

 Thereafter they made their way to the Kaba peak, which rose 

 on our opposite side perpendicularly out of the crater. There 

 the two were to spend the night in the open air, and let 

 loose their pigeon as an offering to the Dewa. I knew that 

 they must have come on some special mission, and suspected 

 that the younger man had perhaps set his heart on a fair 

 maiden, and desired to impress the deity into his suit ; or 

 that they had come to solicit a good rice crop in what was then 

 an almost famine time ; or that sickness or some grave trouble 

 oppressed them ; but on inquiring of my guide the specific 

 reason, I found that they were earnestly desirous that the 

 Dewa might incline the heart of the magistrate of their district 

 to grant them leave to hold — a cock-fighting tournament ! 



The hut of pandan mats which I had sent men to erect close 

 * C/. Nature, vol. xxiv. p. 307 ; xxvi. p. 386 ; xxvii. p, 30. 



