CHAPTER XV 



GENEBAL ADAPTATIONS OF PLANTS, ANIMAI.S, AND MAN 



The adaptations of plants and animals, more especially as 

 regards the cross-fertilisation of flowers by insects, forms a 

 very important part of Darwin's work, and has been fully 

 and popularly elaborated since by Grant Allen, Sir John Lub- 

 bock (now Lord Avebury), Hermann ^1 tiller, and many other 

 writers. I have also myself given a general account of the 

 whole subject both in my Tropical Xature, and my Darwin- 

 ism; but as there are some points of importance which, 1 be- 

 lieve, have not yet been discussed, and as the readers of this 

 volume may not be acquainted with the vast extent of the evi- 

 dence, I will here give a short outline of the facts before 

 showing how it bears upon the main argument of the present 

 work. 



Another reason why it is necessary to recapitulate the evi- 

 dence is that those w^hose knowledge of this subject is derived 

 from having read the Origin of Species only, can have no 

 idea whatever of the vast mass of observations the author of 

 that work had even then collected on the subject, but found 

 it impossible to include in it. He there only made a few 

 general, and often hypothetical, references both to the facts 

 of insect- fertilisation, and to the purpose of cross-fertilisation. 

 On the latter point he makes this general statement: " 1 have 

 come to this conclusion (that flowers are coloured to attract 

 insects) from finding it an invariable rule that when a flower 

 is fertilised bv the wind it never has a ciailv-coloured ('or«)lla.'' 

 Then a few lines farther on he advei'ts to beautifullv coloured 

 fruits and says: "But the beauty servers merely as a guide to 

 birds and beasts, in order tliat the fruit may be devoured and 

 the matured seed disseminated: T infer that this is the case 



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