After Darwin, several investigators, such as Kerner, Delpino and Hildebrand, have paid further attention to the subject, but it has been especially studied in a most thorough manner by Hermann Müller[215]. He looked at the subject from more than one point of view, and showed by direct observation the species of insects which effect cross-fertilization in various species of our native flowers: he also studied the structure of insects in relation to that of flowers, and attempted to establish the mutual adaptations which exist between them. In this way he succeeded in throwing much light upon the process of transformation in many species of flowers, and in proving that certain insects, although unconsciously, are, as it were, breeders of certain forms of flowers. He not only distinguished the disagreeably smelling, generally inconspicuous flowers (‘Ekelblumen’) produced by Diptera which live on putrid substances, and the flowers which are produced by butterflies; but he also distinguished the flowers bred by saw-flies, by Fossoria, and by bees. He even believes that in certain cases (_Viola calcarata_) he can prove that a flower which owed its original form to being bred by bees, was afterwards adapted to cross-fertilization by butterflies, when it had migrated into an Alpine region where the latter insects are far more abundant than the former. Although there must of course be much that is hypothetical in the interpretations of the different parts of flowers offered by Hermann Müller, the majority of these explanations are certainly correct, and it is of the greatest interest to be able to recognise the adaptive character of details, even when apparently unimportant, in the structure and colours of flowers. Sachs has offered a very convincing explanation as to the meaning of leaf-veining, and of its significance in relation to the functions of leaves[216]. He shows that the venation of a leaf is in every case exactly adapted for the fulfilment of its purpose. It has, in the first place, to conduct the nutrient fluid in both directions, and in the second place to support the thin layers of assimilating chlorophyll cells, and to stretch them out so as to expose as large a surface as possible to the light; lastly, it has to toughen the leaf as a protection against being torn. He shows in a very convincing manner that the whole diversity of leaf venation can be understood from these three principles. Here, again, we meet with purposeful arrangements in a class of structures in which it was formerly thought that there was only a chaos of accidental forms, or, as it were, the mere sport of nature with form. Appendix IV. On the supposed transmission of acquired characters[217].