BEES AS FLORISTS. 321 



is apparent : all variations which render the blossoms 

 more attractive, either by scent, colour, size of 

 corolla, or quantity of nectar, make the insect visit 

 more sure, and therefore the production of seed more 

 likely. Thus, the conspicuous blossoms secure de- 

 scendants which inherit the special variations of their 

 parents, and so, generation after generation, we have 

 selection in favour of conspicuous flowers, where 

 insects are at work. Their appreciation of colour, 

 because it has brought the blossom possessing it more 

 immediately into their view, and more surely under 

 their attention, has enabled them, through the ages, 

 to be preparing the specimens upon which man now 

 operates ; he taking up the work where they have 

 left it, selecting, inoculating, and hybridising, according 

 to his own rules of taste, and developing a beauty which 

 insects alone could never have evolved. His are the 

 finishing touches, his the apparent effects ; yet no less 

 is it true, that the results of his floriculture would 

 never have been attainable without insect helpers. 

 It is equally certain, that the beautiful perfume, and 

 the nectar also, are, in their present development, 

 the outcome of repeated insect selection ; and here, it 

 seems to me, we get an inkling of a deep mystery : 

 Why is life, in all its forms so dependent upon the 

 fusion of two individual elements? Is it not, that 

 thus the doorway of progress has been opened ? If 

 each alone had reproduced, itself all-in-all, advance 

 would have been impossible ; the insect and human 

 florists and penologists, like the improvers of animal 

 races would have had no platform for their opera- 

 tion and, not only the forms of life, but life itself, 



