i88 3 J 
Flowers and Insects . 
221 
of view of no importance. The number of honey-loving 
insedbs was, in short, proportionate to that of flowers. 
We must pay especial attention to the reply of M. 
Heckel. He does not seek to deal with the fadts of 
M. Musset, nor does he adduce any counter-observations. 
He writes : — “ I persist in maintaining that fecundating 
inserts are not in any manner the cause of the luxuriance 
of the floral system in some Alpine species.” If we were 
to pronounce this a typical specimen of Anti-Evolutionist 
reasoning we should not improbably be accused in certain 
quarters of “ intolerance.” We will therefore leave it to the 
judgment of our readers, and pass on to an argument which 
M. Heckel vouchsafes to bring forward. He submits that 
if the especial beauty of the Alpine flora is due to the adtion 
of inserts they must be present not merely in moderate 
quantities, but adtually in greater numbers than in the low 
grounds, which M. Musset does not assert ! This strange 
plea convinces us that M. Heckel does not take the 
trouble to understand, or at least fairly to represent the 
workings of the struggle for existence. If butterflies and 
bees were entirely absent, of course they could have no 
adtion, and the colouration of the flowers would neither be 
assumed nor modified to suit their perception. But are we 
therefore warranted in concluding that the more numerous 
these insedts are the greater will be the effedt produced ? 
Decidedly not : if the honey-loving insedts become very nu- 
merous their influence will substantially cease. In their 
eager quest for honey every flower, whether conspicuous or 
otherwise, will be visited. Those of bright and pure colour 
will cease to have any marked advantage over such as are 
dull and ordinary. There will hence be no reason why a 
flower more brilliant than others of its species should have 
any advantage over them in securing cross-fertilisation, and 
consequently in leaving more numerous descendants. But 
let us suppose, as is adbually the case, certain plants growing 
about the very margins of perpetual snow. Bees and but- 
terflies will not be too eager to make a very minute search 
in regions so closely bordering on the absence of life. But 
if they espy from afar, e.g., an Alpine pink, they will hasten 
to it at once, and secure its cross-fertilisation. Thus the 
more brilliant a flower the more certain it is to effedt the 
objedt of its existence. The most beautiful will be seledted 
and the dullest overlooked far more certainly than in some 
region where the swarm of insedt visitors was greater. 
We may here mention that, according to Sir Robert 
Schomburgk, there exists on the mountains of British 
