1884.] 
8 orrespondence. 561 
its armour is for defence against the spines and thorns of the 
vidtim’s tail. Perhaps the sucker is also used for devouring 
spawn. The Sturgeon’s tail is heterocercal, in order to wave 
above the ground while keeping the Sturgeon close to it. Why 
are sharks’ tails heterocercal ? 
JESSAMINE. 
A FRIEND has shown to me that the flowers of the Jessamine are 
visited by humble bees which gnaw through the side of the calyx, 
instead of thrusting their probosces down it, and soon after the 
calyx drops, and, I believe, the pistils are unfrudtified. Con- 
sidering the length of the humble bee’s proboscis, it is hard to 
believe that it would have difficulty in reaching the honey on 
account of the length of the calyx, and I suggest that it may be 
from want of a perch that it is led to abandon the usual way. 
The marvellous way in which some flowers, such as snapdragons, 
are adapted to give perch to bees and to fit their feet as they open 
them, seems to me beyond chance and unconscious selection. Has 
not the plant a conscious effort towards an end ? Time may come 
when Descartes’s notion of unconscious mechanism will be re- 
jected in favour of plants as well as animals. But to return to 
the Jessamine : I venture to guess that it is fruCtified by the hawk- 
motli ; and my reasons are that it is not adapted to bees, yet its 
scent is to draw some day inseCt with a long proboscis, and that 
inseCt is either very light or it does not need a perch, and in 
England it is very rare, like Jessamine seed. Indeed, the only 
place where I have found the hawk-moth frequent, is the York- 
shire coast. Can anyone help me with a suggestion ? I have 
re’d (for my sake don’t spell that past participle like the present 
tense !) somewhere that all our Jessamines originated from a 
specimen in Tuscany. 
Hugh Browne. 
Nottingham, August 19, 1884. 
[Our Correspondent omits to state what species of hawk-moth. 
We have several in England, though none of them exactly 
common. — E d. J. S.] 
SEX. 
Your argument against “ mad competition ” for shutting men 
out from marriage, is good as far as it goes ; but it does not go 
so far as the faCt that there are about 600,000 more females than 
males in the kingdom ; and the misery comprised in this faCt is 
