Ii8 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS 



gingko-trees flourished. It is a very curious and significant 

 fact, when one thinks it over, that the beautiful shapes 

 and colours of flowers which human beings admire and 

 love so much to-day, have been produced by the habit of 

 insects seeking honey and pollen as nourishment from 

 flowers which were at first dull-coloured or green, but 

 became brilliant in colour and arresting in shape by 

 natural selection and survival of the fit. Those flowers 

 which at first by variation — variation which always and 

 simply must occur, because all nature varies and changes 

 in detail as time goes on — showed a patch of colour, were 

 seen and visited by the insects, were accordingly fertilised 

 by the pollen carried on the body of the insect, and so 

 were favoured and transmitted their variation, their ten- 

 dency to produce colour, to their offspring. Thus, through 

 the agency of the insects, bright obvious flowers of various 

 colours and shapes were little by little developed. At 

 first a little colour would gain success, but more and more, 

 in the competition for place and nourishment, the brightest 

 and (to the insects) most attractive colourings and shapes 

 would gain favour and multiply. And so at last we have 

 that world of beauty — the flowers as we see them to-day 

 in all their loveliness of colour and pattern — created, pro- 

 duced, even as man produces new garden kinds, by those 

 innocent little horticulturists — the flower-seeking insects. 



