bee and carried away.
'When the bee, so provided, flies to another flower, or to the same
flower a second time, and is pushed by its comrades into the bucket,
and then crawls out by the passage, the pollen-mass upon its back
necessarily comes first into contact with the viscid stigma,' which
takes up the pollen; and this is how that orchid is fertilised. Or
take this other case of the Catasetum 'Bees visit these flowers in
order to gnaw the labellum; in doing this they inevitably touch a
long, tapering, sensitive projection. This, when touched, transmits a
sensation or vibration to a certain membrane, which is instantly
ruptured, setting free a spring, by which the pollen-mass is shot
forth like an arrow in the right direction, and adheres by its viscid
extremity to the back of the bee.' In this way the fertilising pollen
is spread abroad.

It is the mind thus stored with the choicest materials of the
teleologist that rejects teleology, seeking to refer these wonders to
natural causes. They illustrate, according to him, the method of
nature, not the 'technic' of a manlike Artificer. The beauty of
flowers is due to natural selection. Those that distinguish
themselves by vividly contrasting colours from the surrounding green
leaves are most readily seen, most frequently visited by insects, most
often fertilised, and hence most favoured by natural selection.
Coloured berries also readily attract the attention of birds and
beasts, which feed upon them, spread their manured seeds abroad, thus
giving trees and shrubs possessing such berries a greater chance in
the struggle for existence.

With profound analytic and synthetic skill, Mr. Darwin investigates
the cell-making instinct of the hive-bee. His method of dealing with
it is representative. He falls back from the more perfectly to the
less perfectly developed instinct--from the hive-bee to the humble
bee, which uses its own cocoon as a comb, and to classes of bees of
intermediate skill, endeavouring to show how the passage might be
gradually made from the lowest to the highest. The saving of wax is
the most important point in the economy of bees. Twelve to fifteen
pounds of dry sugar are said to be needed for the secretion of a
single pound of wax. The quantities of nectar necessary for the wax
must therefore be vast; and every improvement of constructive instinct
which results in the saving of wax is a direct profit to the insect's
life. The time that would