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ing; and even if they did no harm to its organs while sucking the nectar, they frequently could not reach the flower of another plant without descending and crawling along the ground. This process, besides involving waste of time, would expose the pollen attached to them to the risk of being rubbed off, or destroyed by contact with soil or moisture. Moreover, these insects pay no heed to the kind of flowers which they visit. They pass from one to another indiscriminately, and it would thus be by mere chance that the pollen would reach another flower of the same species. It is a very remarkable fact that the winged insects which do the work of cross-fertilisation confine themselves, in their rapid flight from flower to flower, to blossoms of the same species. The bee, for instance, will confine itself during a single journey to the flowers of one and the same species, and never seems tempted to turn to others till it has returned to the hive with its spoil.

The most unwelcome, and yet the greediest of wingless insects, are ants. They are gifted with exceptional powers of smell, and are therefore attracted to any sweet substance from a great distance. Dr. Kerner relates an interesting example of this. In the house of one of his colleagues at Innsbrück, some dried pears which were laid upon the groundfloor were immediately attacked by ants. To prevent their interference, the pears were transferred to a room on the second story; but the following day the ants were busy at work. On investigation it was found that they had made their way up-stairs by means of a bellwire, which communicated with the garden, and passed by the window of the room in which the pears were deposited. These busy little creatures, moreover, do not suspend their activity during the night, as is proved by observations on night-blooming flowers, while their perseverance is only equalled by their industry. To prevent the useless depredations of such insects, numerous protective contrivances exist. For instance, in Phygelius Capensis, a Cape flower which is rich in nectar, all access to the coveted food during the process of fertilisation is rendered impossible to insects like ants by the ovary forming, as it were, a plug at the base of the tubular corolla, while

stronger insects can without difficulty insert their probosces into the nectar pits. But so soon as fertilisation takes place and the flowers fall off, the obstruction is removed, and the ants are free to avail themselves of the nectar, which they do greedily. The common Antirrhinum furnishes a more familiar example of such mechanical protection. Here it is secured simply by the closure of the lips of the corolla. They remain closed so long as the stigma is not fertilised; and while bees can easily effect an entrance by forcing open the compressed lips, such insects as ants are effectually excluded. So soon, however, as the stigma has been covered with pollen, the tension of the corolla is relaxed, the lips separate, and the ants are free to carry off the nectar as they please.

The visits of such insects are generally prevented by the secretion, on various parts of the plant, of a viscid substance, which bars their passage in attempting to reach the flowers. Stems and leaves, flower-stalks and bracts, and frequently the calyx, the external sheath of the flower itself, afford protection in this

way.

The Rock-lychnis (Lychnis viscaria) and the beautiful Butter-wort (Pinguicula vulgaris) may serve as illustrations. Various ends are served by such secretions; and in the case of Pinguicula, when we remember that it is one of the insect-eating plants, we can scarcely agree with Dr. Kerner in regarding the viscid secretion on its leaves as having, for its primary function,' the exclusion of insects from the flower. This, however, is not the least important of its functions. By its stickiness it forms an effectual trap to prevent their upward progress. Of other wingless

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insects, among the most formidable, from the extraordinary rapidity with which they multiply, are Aphides. Every cultivator of roses knows too well what the

green-fly' means. These little creatures will be found swarming on the under-sides of leaves, on flower-stalks, and even on the exterior of the flowers; but fortunately they are rarely to be found within the blossoms, whose juicy tissue they would speedily pierce and destroy. With soft bodies and long delicate limbs, they avoid all except smooth surfaces. Bristles or hairs form a sufficient barrier against their attacks.

Another set of guests which are unwelcome to flowers, because useless for the purposes of cross-fertilisation, are soft-bodied animals, such as snails, slugs, and caterpillars. Viscid secretions would not be effectual in excluding these visitants, especially snails, which can easily overcome the obstruction by coating the sticky surface with their own slime. An effectual bar to the approach of such animals is secured by thorns, prickles, and bristles. They are at once repelled by any sharp point coming in contact with their bodies. The arrangement of these means of defence is sometimes striking in adaptation. While thorns, which protect the leaves behind them, are pointed horizontally or in an ascending direction, an array of prickles and bristles on various parts of the plant will be found pointing downwards, so as to prevent the ascent of animals which crawl from beneath. The individual flower-heads of composite species, such as thistles, furnish familiar examples; and it will generally be found that the accumulations of these obstacles are greater the nearer the approach to the flower-head. In many plants whose stems and leaves are perfectly smooth, the involucre, or combination of bracts which surround the flower, is fully furnished with such means of defence.

The protective appliances which we have hitherto noticed have had in view the exclusion of animals which creep upward, and are therefore developed on the path which they must tread. But flowers are exposed to the visits of numberless flying insects, which are too small to effect any good purpose in the process of fertilisation. We find, therefore, that inside the flowers themselves there are numerous provisions for the exclusion of such guests. These generally consist of soft hair-like formations (trichomes), developed in various forms on different portions of the floral organs. One of the most striking of these formations is a circular collection of hairs having the free ends pointed inwards, yet so arranged as to leave an aperture, through which larger insects may thrust their probosces in reaching the nectar. These circular arrangements have been termed 'weels,' from their resemblance to the so-called wicker baskets which are used by fishermen for catching eels. In

the Dead-nettle (Lamium), in most species of Speedwell (Veronica), in Passionflowers, and in Lilies, these formations may easily be observed. In various positions and arrangements, as may be necessary for protecting the organs of fructification,' these hair-like processes are developed within the blossoms, forming weels, nets, trellises, lattices, or fringes of countless forms and of marvellous beauty. The same ends are served by the peculiar formation of different parts of the flower. These are often manifestly designed to protect the nectar from the ravages of unwelcome guests. They are curved or dilated, laminated or arched, thickened or constricted, forming grooves, tubes, tubercles, chambers, pouches, in such endless variety of form as to render it a difficult task to give a general view of them.'

A very remarkable provision of Nature in the case of night-blooming flowers consists in a temporary suspension of the functions of parts which serve to attract insects. During the sunshine they are safe from the attacks of enemies; while with evening, these functions resume their activity, and allure the insects that search for nectar after sunset. The coloration of these nightblooming flowers is peculiar. In the daytime, insects are doubtless attracted by variety of color as well as by scent, and there can be no doubt that they discriminate colors. Sir John Lubbock has shown that this is the case with bees. He placed some honey upon slips of glass, with paper of various colors underneath them. After he had accustomed the bees for a time to find the honey upon the blue glass, he washed it clean, and placed the honey upon the red glass instead. The bees on returning did not fly at once to the red glass, as they should have done if they had been guided alone by the sense of smell. They went first to the blue glass, and it was only after they failed to find a supply on the accustomed color, that they sought it elsewhere. Variety of color would be useless in the twilight or during the night; and therefore among flowers which blossom after sunset, the inner surface of the petals is simply white, the outer surface being of some inconspicuous color, as greenishbrown, dirty yellow, or ash-gray. Dur

ing the daytime, when these flowers are closed, they remain unobserved, appearing as if withered; while in the evening, when open, their white petals render them distinctly visible.

Dr. Kerner has made several nightblooming species of Silene a special study. In these plants each flower generally lasts three days and three nights. During the day they are curled up, and appear as if wrinkled and withered; but as soon as evening approaches the wrinkles disappear, the petals become smooth, the flowers unfold in all their freshness; and during the period of fertilisation, their internal organs fulfil their functions in exact correspondence with the opening and shutting of the corolla. In the daytime these flowers are entirely destitute of fragrance; but in the evening, simultaneously with the opening of their petals, they exhale a rich odor. They are safe, therefore, from the attacks of enemies during the sunshine; while their viscid footstalks protect them from such wingless visitants as might be disposed to find them out at night. By this temporary suspension of function they are reserved for the visits of insects, which prove useful in promoting the great ends of cross-fertilisation.

Many of the peculiarities of structure to which we have referred have other ends to serve than those indicated. For instance, minute prickles, and bristles, and hair-like trichomes, as well as pecu liarities of formation in various parts of the blossom, fulfil the function of what Dr. Kerner calls 'path-pointers.' The benefit or injury which may result to a flower from visits of insects which promote the work of cross-fertilisation, depends upon the mode of their entrance. If they should reach the nectar without coming in contact with the organs of fructification, there would be manifestly useless waste. To prevent this, many

contrivances exist. In one species of Pedicularis, for example, a groove, bordered on each side by a swelling, runs along the median line of the lower lip of the corolla. To effect fertilisation, the bee must pass its proboscis down this groove in reaching the nectar; for only in this manner can it cause the upper lip to incline forward, so that the pollen may fall out of the anthers, and the stigma be brought into contact with its body. Should the bee insert its proboscis higher up, above the groove, this motion of the corolla could not take place, and the mechanism by which fertilisation is secured would not be brought into play. To secure this object, therefore, the upper lip is studded with small sharp teeth which compel the bee to find an entrance in the only way which can effect the process of fertilisation.

Many other interesting examples might be quoted. Enough, however, has been said to indicate the interest of such investigations. Oftentimes our interpretation of the designs and secrets of Nature may fail in accuracy, and generalisations may require to be modified; but we should remember that, without careful observation of processes and patient accumulation of facts, we cannot reach a higher and truer appreciation of her marvellous laws. The humblest observer of the flowers of the field may take part in such investigations, and find pleasure in adding to the stores of our knowledge, regarding the many wonderful appliances by which Nature secures the fertilisation and the preservation of her species. The beauty and the poetry of flowers,' as Darwin truly says, 'will not be at all lessened to the general observer' by investigation of the minute details of structure, and observation of the multiplicity of means by which Nature accomplishes her ends. Chambers's Journal.

THE MELANCHOLY OF THE EDUCATED ENGLISH.

WE published some months since two articles, in one of which it was maintained and in another denied that, owing to the intellectual circumstances of the age, there was every probability of a positive decrease in the joy, or gladness, or

capacity of mirth within the Western world. The articles were doubtless read and forgotten as such things are, but it was noteworthy that the disputants, differing on all else, admitted, as a fact, a certain increase in the heaviness or

gloom of the present intellectual atmosphere. To-day, glancing over the endless magazines as they stream in, almost too many to read, and far too thoughtstimulating to enjoy, we have been struck with two efforts, made by two literary men, in two widely different modes, to state and explain their own conviction that the more oppressive or melancholy view is the truer one. Mr. James Payn, in prose, through the Nineteenth Century, and Mr. H. D. Traill in a poem, in the new magazine, Time, express in very different ways the self-same thought, that melancholy is in our time increasing, till mirth is dead, and till the more cultivated, the more enlightened, the more thoughtful a man may be, the less he can retain any of the old buoyancy and boyishness of spirit, the old capacity for laughter, and enjoyment, and boisterousness of mood. Mr. Payn gives his opinion as that of the landlord of a "Midway Inn," who watched the old guests and watches the new, and finds that they are changed:

"There is now no fun in the world. Wit we have, and an abundance of grim humor, which evokes anything but mirth. Nothing would astonish us in the Midway Inn so much as a peal of laughter. A great writer (though it must be confessed scarcely an amusing one), who has recently reached his journey's end, used to describe his animal spirits depreciatingly, as being at the best but vegetable spirits. And that is now the way with us all. When Charles Dickens died, it was confidently stated in a great literary journal that his loss, so far from affecting the gaiety of nations,' would scarcely be felt at all; the power of rousing tears and laughter being (I suppose the writer thought) so very common. That prophecy has been by no means fulfilled. But what is far worse than there being no humorous writers amongst us, the faculty of appreciating even the old ones is dying out. There is no such thing as highspirits anywhere.

The desire to be "out of it all" increases, Mr. Payn says, fast, till old age is no longer looked forward to with pleasure. So strongly does he feel the prevalence of this weariness, that he even derives from it a theory to the disadvantage of his own métier, which is that of writing novels, not, we fear, firstrate, though they have something separate in them, suggesting that the "enormous and increasing popularity of fiction" is due to the willingness of readers to find themselves "anywhere, anywhere out of a world" which wearies and

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vexes and perplexes them to death, not because, as the writer in the Spectator held, of any overplus of sympathy for distant suffering, but because they know too much, yet have no certainty about anything, and especially no certainty about the future. Hell and heaven, even if still believed in, have lost their terrors and their attractions. The fear of hell is gone, and the hope of heaven is being outgrown, as the schoolboy finds his paradise no more in home. "The attractions of the place," says Mr. Payn, who, it is evident from the context, has no intention to be irreverent," are dying out, like those of Bath or Cheltenham."' The guests at the Midway Inn are very, very weary, even of their rest. Mr. Traill tells us the same thing, and one more thing in verse, which, though it would hardly have been written had Mr. Fitzgerald never translated Omar Khayyam, is nevertheless very fine :

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"Vainly the farce of gaiety is played;

Death smiles sardonic on the poor parade; Nor can our hollow laughters exorcise That spectre whom the old-world reveilers laid.

The rose they wreathed around the careless head,

The wine they poured, the perfumes that they shed,

The eyes that smiled on them, the lips they pressed,

For us what are they? Faded, vapid, dead!

Dead is for us the rose we know must die; Long ere we drain the goblet it is dry;

And even as we kiss, the distant grave Chills the warm lip and dims the lustrous eye!

Too far our race has journeyed from its birth; Too far Death casts his shadow o'er the earth. Ah, what remains to strengthen and support

Our hearts, since they have lost the trick of mirth?

The stay of fortitude? The lofty pride Wherewith the sages of the Porch denied That pain and death are evils, and proclaimed

Lawful the exit of the suicide?

Alas, not so! No Stoic calm is ours; We dread the thorns who joy not in the flowers.

We dare not breathe the mountain-air of Pain,

Droop as we may in Pleasure's stifling bowers.

What profits it, if here and there we see
A spirit nerved by trust in God's decree,
Who fronts the grave in firmness of the

faith

Taught by the Carpenter of Galilee?

Who needs not wine nor roses, lute nor lyre, Scorns life, or quits it by the gate of fire,

Erect and fearless-what is that to us Who hold him for the dupe of vain desire?

Can we who wake enjoy the dreamer's dream? Will the parched treeless waste less hideous

seem

Because there shines before some foolish eyes

Mirage of waving wood and silver stream ?"

The sixth verse in our quotation is the best as well as the saddest of all, and rounds-off the tale of melancholy with a touch which we had half-forgotten. With the loss of the capacity of enjoyment there has come no loss of the sybarite shrinking from pain, and Clubmen today are no more Stoics than they are Christians.

The two utterances, neither of which will perhaps strike our readers as powerfully as both have struck ourselves, are the more remarkable, because they both come, not from idle dreamers, men sicklied by continuous enjoyment of leisure, but from men of the world, immersed in affairs, and much more likely to be suffering from over-work than to be melancholy from idleness. Mr. Payn is a novelist, Mr. Traill a journalist, and neither has much cause to complain of the treatment of mankind. Yet both declare, one in numbers and one in prose, but both with an air of sincerity, that the gloom of the world they live in, this London world around us, increases, till men are so definitely less happy, that Mr. Traill says they are "in despair," and Mr. Payn that they are anxious to be"out of it all." These are exaggerated expressions no doubt, intended to produce broad literary effect; but there is, as far as our experience goes, truth in the description. The Byronic affectation of fifty years ago has no place now; men try to be sincere, even in their whinings; and the weariness, though acknowledged, is no more boasted of than a physical deformity or disqualification would be. It simply exists like fog, and the perception of its existence. no more diminishes the virtues, or even the industry, of the men who perceive or

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feel it than the fog does. Indeed, that is the side of the matter which would most have interested and puzzled our grandfathers. They, good people! believed, what was perhaps quite true in their time, that melancholy, ennui, weariness -call it what you please-came only to the idle, and would have prescribed a good rousing" course of work as the infallible cure; but to-day it comes chiefly to the workers, and makes men miserable who are toiling like navvies for a success or an object which, when attained, they know will be like ashes in their mouths. They fail in no diligence, no attention, and often in no self-denial; they do not seclude themselves from men; and they live, we think, on the whole, better lives than of old; yet they recognise to themselves the tastelessness of everything,-even of the critical insight from which the recognition comes. They are weary of it all, even in middleage and when they have succeeded, so weary, that it is scarcely an exaggeration to say, as Mr. Payn intimates, that were the choice in their own hands, and one which affected only themselves, they would rather avoid the long life which ancient moralists promised as one of the rewards of God to those whom he approved.

Both Mr. Traill and Mr. Payn in substance, though under different forms of words, attribute this growing melancholy mainly to the loss of a hope which sustained our fathers, and no doubt that loss involves a great loss in the capacity of joy, but the explanation will not entirely content any careful observer. It does not cover all the facts. The men of the ancient civilisations, who had often as little hope as Professor Clifford, had often also a deep joy in life; and that conjunction, entire disbelief in any other life and a high estimate of this one, is said to be a definite note of character among educated Italians. It is the root of their horror of capital punishment, a horror so deep that no considerations of public safety, however obvious, seem able to overcome it. Moreover, it is vain to snatch a victory over the sceptics, as some clergymen try to do in the pulpit, by expatiating on their melancholy, for melancholy as deep may be noted in men with whom the belief in a future state is not the result of a

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