It has been objected to such experiments as mine, that covering plants with a net, although only for a short time whilst in flower, may affect their health and fertility. I have seen no such effect except in one instance with a Myosotis, and the covering may not then have been the real cause of injury. But even if the net were slightly injurious, and certainly it was not so in any high degree, as I could judge by the appearance of the plants and by comparing their fertility with that of neighbouring uncovered plants, it would not have vitiated my experiments; for in all the more important cases the flowers were crossed as well as self-fertilised under a net, so that they were treated in this respect exactly alike. As it is impossible to exclude such minute pollen-carrying insects as Thrips, flowers which it was intended to fertilise with their own pollen may sometimes have been afterwards crossed with pollen brought by these insects from another flower on the same plant; but as we shall hereafter see, a cross of this kind does not produce any effect, or at most only a slight one. When two or more plants were placed near one another under the same net, as was often done, there is some real though not great danger of the flowers which were believed to be self-fertilised being afterwards crossed with pollen brought by Thrips from a distinct plant. I have said that the danger is not great because I have often found that plants which are self-sterile, unless aided by insects, remained sterile when several plants of the same species were placed under the same net. If, however, the flowers which had been presumably self-fertilised by me were in any case afterwards crossed by Thrips with pollen brought from a distinct plant, crossed seedlings would have been included amongst the self-fertilised; but it should be especially observed that this occurrence would tend to diminish and not to increase any superiority in average height, fertility, etc., of the crossed over the self-fertilised plants.