I will give one other instance: for this subject of the
same end being gained by the most diversified means well deserves
attention. Some authors maintain that organic beings have been formed in
many ways for the sake of mere variety, almost like toys in a shop, but
such a view of nature is incredible. With plants having separated sexes,
and with those in which, though hermaphrodites, the pollen does not
spontaneously fall on the stigma, some aid is necessary for their
fertilisation. With several kinds this is effected by the pollen-grains,
which are light and incoherent, being blown by the wind through mere chance
on to the stigma; and this is the simplest plan which can well be
conceived. An almost equally simple, though very different plan occurs in
many plants in which a symmetrical flower secretes a few drops of nectar,
and is consequently visited by insects; and these carry the pollen from the
anthers to the stigma.
>From this simple stage we may pass through an inexhaustible number of
contrivances, all for the same purpose and effected in essentially the same
manner, but entailing changes in every part of the flower. The nectar may
be stored in variously shaped receptacles, with the stamens and pistils
modified in many ways, sometimes forming trap-like contrivances, and
sometimes capable of neatly adapted movements through irritability or
elasticity. From such structures we may advance till we come to such a
case of extraordinary adaptation as that lately described by Dr.
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