REVIEWS. 
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this way as they go from flower to flower, they often accumulate two or 
three or even more pairs of pollinia. One specimen of a noctuid moth ( Acontia 
luctuosa ) had no fewer than seven (see fig. 3), and a specimen of a Cciradrina 
eleven pairs of pollinia attached to the proboscis. “ The proboscis of this 
latter moth,” says Mr. Darwin, “ presented an extraordinary arborescent 
appearance. The saddle-formed discs, each bearing a pair of pollinia, 
adhered to the proboscis, one before the other, with perfect symmetry; and 
this follows from the moth having always inserted its proboscis into the 
nectary in exactly the same manner, owing to the presence of the guiding 
plates on the labellum. The unfortunate Caradrina, with its proboscis thus 
encumbered, could hardly have reached the extremity of the nectary, and 
Fig. 3. 
HEAD AND PROBOSCIS OF ACONTIA LUCTUOSA, WITH SEVEN PAIRS OF THE POLLINIA 
OF ORCHIS PYRAMJDALIS ATTACHED TO THE PROBOSCIS. 
would soon have been starved to death. Both these moths must have 
sucked many more than the seven and eleven flowers, of which they bore the 
trophies, for the earlier attached pollinia had lost much of their pollen, 
showing that they had touched many viscid stigmas.” 
From the examples furnished by these common British orchids, the 
reader may understand the general principle upon which the fertilization of 
the seeds is effected in the plants of that family. The process throughout 
is the same, modified in certain details, but always, except in the few 
species known or supposed to be self-fecundating, involving the attachment 
of a disc, forming part of the rostellum and bearing pollinia, to some part of 
the head of an insect, which thus conveys the fertilizing agents to other 
flowers. We shall not attempt, nor indeed would our space permit us to 
follow Mr. Darwin through his description of the details of the process in 
the various groups of orchids ; for while any such attempt could only prove 
a failure, it might also have the effect of inducing our readers to avoid the 
perusal of one of the most charming natural history books that ever issued 
from tne press. Otherwise we should have liked to give some account of 
the case of Catasetum, one of the most curious and interesting of the whole, 
in which the pollinia, attached to a common pedicel, which in its turn is 
attached to a viscid disc, are actually, as it were, shot out, disc forwards, as 
soon as any object comes in contact with the tentacle-like organs which 
here represent the rostellum. The whole of that portion of Mr. Darwin’s 
book which is devoted to the description of the observed phenomena will be 
read with the greatest pleasure by everyone possessing some taste for 
