of one era have grown into the conspicuous flowers of another, the answer is negative. The conifers of the coal age were anemophilous then, and are anemophilous still; they show no symptom of becoming more conspicuous; the same is true of the oaks of the chalk period, and of all other inconspicuous plants. The difference between conspicuous and inconspicuous flowers appears a permanent one; and the page of geology gives no evidence in favour of the supposed change. Another observation must yet be made. Comparing flowers fertilized by insects and by the wind, it has never, so far as I can learn, been observed that the former are more certain of being set or more prolific than the latter; and, as already shown, the inconspicuous flowers are often more fertile than the conspicuous ones. What motive would there be, then, for the inconspicuous flowers of the early geologic periods to convert themselves into the brilliant corollas of our day? Carefully considered, the passage which I have cited from Mr. Darwin does not account for the beauty of the flowers of plants at all; it accounts only for their conspicuousness, as the writer himself points out; and the two things are so different, that to account for the one is not even to tend to account for the other. If any one will consider the beauty of every inflorescence, whether conspicuous or not--a beauty which the microscope always makes apparent where the unaided eye fails to perceive it; or, again, the easily perceived beauty of many inconspicuous plants; or, lastly, the beauty of many conspicuous plants which does not tend to their conspicuousness--he will see how true this is. For in many conspicuous flowers there are delicate pencillings and markings which certainly do not tend to make them such, but which nevertheless add greatly to their beauty, as we perceive it. In the regularly shaped flowers these markings often start from the centre of the blossom like radii, and they may be conceived as guiding the insects to the central store of honey. Such guidance can hardly be needful, as the shape of the flower itself generally does all, and more than all, that the markings can do in the way of guidance. But it is by no means true that all the markings lead to the centre of the flower: many are transverse; many are marginal; some are by way of spot. Again, take the irregularly shaped flowers, which are supposed to be the exclusive subjects of insect fertilization; how infinite are the beauties of the flower over and above those which make it conspicuous, or can assist to guide the insect. Take the orchids, for example: the labellum is generally the landing-place of the insect visitors; but the other flower-leaves are almost always the subjects of a vast display of delicate beauty which cannot be accounted for by the necessity of conspicuousness or guidance. All this beauty is, on the theory in question, an unexplained fact.