Insects, however, differ much from one another in their æsthetic tastes, and flowers are adapted accordingly to the varying fancies of the different kinds. Here, for example, is a spray of common white galium, which attracts and is fertilised by small flies, who generally frequent white blossoms. But here, again, not far off, I find a luxuriant mass of the yellow species, known by the quaint name of 'lady's bedstraw'--a legacy from the old legend which represents it as having formed Our Lady's bed in the manger at Bethlehem. Now why has this kind of galium yellow flowers, while its near kinsman yonder has them snowy white? The reason is that lady's bedstraw is fertilised by small beetles; and beetles are known to be one among the most colour-loving races of insects. You may often find one of their number, the lovely bronze and golden-mailed rose-chafer, buried deeply in the very centre of a red garden rose, and reeling about when touched as if drunk with pollen and honey. Almost all the flowers which beetles frequent are consequently brightly decked in scarlet or yellow. On the other hand, the whole family of the umbellates, those tall plants with level bunches of tiny blossoms, like the fool's parsley, have all but universally white petals; and Müller, the most statistical of naturalists, took the trouble to count the number of insects which paid them a visit. He found that only 14 per cent. were bees, while the remainder consisted mainly of miscellaneous small flies and other arthropodous riff-raff; whereas in the brilliant class of composites, including the asters, sunflowers, daisies, dandelions, and thistles, nearly 75 per cent. of the visitors were steady, industrious bees. Certain dingy blossoms which lay themselves out to attract wasps are obviously adapted, as Müller quaintly remarks, 'to a less æsthetically cultivated circle of visitors.' But the most brilliant among all insect-fertilised flowers are those which specially affect the society of butterflies; and they are only surpassed in this respect throughout all nature by the still larger and more magnificent tropical species which owe their fertilisation to humming-birds and brush-tongued lories.