“I do not say that this would always happen—I should be sorry for any theory which depended upon the intelligence of a sheep—but it was a very striking object-lesson to my two companions; and any one who looks around during this summer with an inquiring mind will find plenty of evidence that grazing, browsing, and nibbling animals avoid flowers, and stick to greenstuff when they can get it. “I do not say that all animals avoid the same flowers. Horses, for instance, may dislike large flowers like roses and conspicuous yellow flowers like buttercups, but they will bite off flat clusters of minute white or pale yellow flowers, such as yarrow or wild parsnip. These distinctions made by certain kinds of beasts will probably in the future be found to afford valuable evidence as to the regions of origin of our flowers and animals. Such plants as the yarrow and the wild parsnip, for instance, probably did not originate in the home of the wild horse, because they are not protected against it. “As a general rule, however, there is abundance of evidence that plants with conspicuous flowers gain a large advantage in the struggle for existence, because grazing and browsing animals avoid them; while there is no real evidence at all that conspicuous flowers attract insects.” Kay Robinson extends this explanation to the shape, the scent, and the nectar of flowers. He admits that many flowers are adapted to the visits of insects, but this is, he asserts, but a secondary result. The “real, primary meaning” of the shapes of flowers of curious configuration is, he insists, “a deterrent to grazing or browsing animals.” According to him plants, like the snap-dragon, which have “blossoms in the semblance of a mouth,” are avoided by grazing animals, because they mistake such flowers for mouths, and have no wish to be bitten! Orchids, he asserts, “are strongly deterrent to grazing and browsing animals, which are looking for greenstuff, and regard these gaudy, spidery, winged blossoms as live creatures.” “If this is not the truth,” he asks, “will any adherent of the theory that we owe the shapes of flowers to insects explain why some of our common British orchids are so like bees, spiders, etc.? Some which have no particular resemblance to any insect still exhibit weird shapes, suggestive to the human mind of living things, such as lizards, etc. The reason why they look like bees, spiders, lizards, and various unclassed creatures is quite simple. Grazing animals are looking for greenstuff, and do not wish to eat living creatures which may bite or sting or taste nasty. Thus the orchids have acquired the power of looking like creatures.