94 
THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
and thus the pollen-masses are drawn 
out of their pouches, are dragged over 
the humid stigmatic surface, and the 
plant is fertilized. So beautifully are 
the relative degrees of adhesiveness of 
the gland, and of the grains of pollen to 
each other and to the stigmatic surface 
mutually adapted, that an insect with an 
adherent pollen-mass will drag it over 
the stigmas of several dowers and leave 
granules of pollen on each. 
The contrivance by which the sticky 
glands are prevented from drying, and 
so kept always viscid and ready for 
action, is even still more curious; they 
lie suspended (at least in the two species 
which I have examined) in a little hemi- 
spherical cup, full of liquid, and formed 
of such delicate membrane that the side 
projecting over the gangway into the 
nectary is ruptured transversely and de- 
pressed by the slightest touch ; and then 
the glands, sticky and fresh out of their 
bath, immediately and almost inevitably 
come into contact with and adhere to the 
body which has just ruptured the cup. 
It is certain that with most of our com- 
mon Orchids insects are absolutely ne- 
cessary for their fertilization ; for without 
their agency the pollen-masses are never 
removed and wither within their pouches, 
I have proved this in the case of Orchis 
morio and mascula, by covering up plants 
under a bell-glass, leaving other adjoining 
plants uncovered ; in the latter I found 
every morning, as the flowers became 
fully expanded, some of the pollen-masses 
removed, whereas in the plants under the 
glass all the pollen - masses remained 
enclosed in the pouches. 
Robert Brown, however, has remarked 
that the fact of all the capsules in a dense 
spike of certain Orchids producing seed 
seems hardly recoucilcable with their 
fertilization having been accidentally 
effected by insects, but I could give many 
facts showing how effectually insects do 
their work. Two cases will here suffice : 
in a plant of Orchis inaculata with forty- 
four flowers open, the twelve upper ones, 
which were not quite mature, had not 
one pollen mass removed, whereas every 
one of the thirty-two lower flowers had 
one or both pollen-masses removed. In 
a plant of Gi/ninadenia conopsea with 
fifty-four open flowers, fifty-two had their 
pollen-masses removed. I have repeatedly 
observed in various Orchids grains of 
pollen, and in one case three whole pollen- 
masses on the stigmatic surface of a 
flower, which still retained its own two 
pollen-masses ; and as often, or even 
oftener, I have found flowers with the 
pollen-masses removed, but with no pol- 
len on their stigmas. These facts clearly 
show that each flower is often, or even 
generally, fertilized by the pollen brought 
by insects from another flower or plant. 
I may add that, after observing our 
Orchids during many years, I have never 
seen a bee or any other diurnal insect 
(except once a butterfly) visit them ; 
therefore I have no doubt that moths are 
the priests which perform the mar- 
riage ceremony. The structure indeed of 
those insects leads to this same conclu- 
sion, for no insect without a very long 
and extremely fine proboscis could pos- 
sibly reach the nectar at the bottom of 
the extremely long and narrow nectary 
of the Butterfly-Orchis ; and entomolo- 
gists have occasionally captured moths 
with pollen-masses adhering to them. If 
any entomologist reads this, and can 
remember positively having caught a 
moth thus furnished, I hope he will give 
its name, and describe exactly to which 
part of the moth’s body the sticky gland 
adhered. 
(To be continued.) 
