only seen pollen of a Cattleya on a bee, but surely have you not unintentionally sent me what I wanted most (after Catasetum or Mormodes), viz., one of the Epidendre?! I particularly want (and will presently tell you why) another spike of this little Orchid, with older flowers, some even almost withered."

His delight in observation is again shown in a letter to Dr. Gray (1863). Referring to Crüger's letters from Trinidad, he wrote:-" Happy man, he has actually seen crowds of bees flying round Catasetum, with the pollinia sticking to their backs!

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The following extracts of letters to Sir J. D. Hooker illustrate further the interest which his work excited in him :"Veitch sent me a grand lot this morning. What wonderful structures!

"I have now seen enough, and you must not send me more, for though I enjoy looking at them much, and it has been very useful to me, seeing so many different forms, it is idleness. For my object each species requires studying for days. I wish you had time to take up the group. I would give a good deal to know what the rostellum is, of which I have traced so many curious modifications. I suppose it cannot be one of the stigmas,* there seems a great tendency for two lateral stigmas to appear. My paper, though touching on only subordinate points will run, I fear, to 100 MS. folio pages! The beauty of the adaptation of parts seems to me unparalleled. I should think or guess waxy pollen was most differentiated. In Cypripedium which seems least modified, and a much exterminated group, the grains are single. In all others, as far as I have seen, they are in packets of four; and these packets cohere into many wedge-formed masses in Orchis; into eight, four, and finally two. It seems curious that a flower should exist, which could at most fertilise only two other flowers, seeing how abundant pollen generally is; this fact I look at as explaining the perfection of the contrivance by which the pollen, so important from its fewness, is carried from flower to flower" † (1861).

"I was thinking of writing to you to-day, when your note with the Orchids came. What frightful trouble you have taken about Vanilla; you really must not take an atom more;

*It is a modification of the upper stigma.

+ This rather obscure statement may be paraphrased thus:The machinery is so perfect that the plant can afford to minimise the amount of pollen produced. Where the machinery for pollen distribution is of a cruder sort, for instance where it is carried by the wind, enormous quantities are produced, e.g. in the fir tree.

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for the Orchids are more play than real work. I have been much interested by Epidendrum, and have worked all morning at them; for Heaven's sake, do not corrupt me by any more (August 30, 1861).

He originally intended to publish his notes on Orchids as a paper in the Linnean Society's Journal, but it soon became evident that a separate volume would be a more suitable form of publication. In a letter to Sir J. D. Hooker, Sept. 24, 1861, he writes:

"I have been acting, I fear that you will think, like a goose; and perhaps in truth I have. When I finished a few days ago my Orchis paper, which turns out one hundred and forty folio pages!! and thought of the expense of woodcuts, I said to myself, I will offer the Linnean Society to withdraw it, and publish it in a pamphlet. It then flashed on me that perhaps Murray would publish it, so I gave him a cautious description, and offered to share risks and profits. This morning he writes that he will publish and take all risks, and share profits and pay for all illustrations. It is a risk, and Heaven knows whether it will not be a dead failure, but I have not deceived Murray, and [have] told him that it would interest those alone who cared much for natural history. I hope I do not exaggerate the curiosity of the many special contrivances." And again on September 28th :

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"What a good soul you are not to sneer at me, but to pat me on the back. I have the greatest doubt whether I am not going to do, in publishing my paper, a most ridiculous thing. It would annoy me much, but only for Murray's sake, if the publication were a dead failure."

There was still much work to be done, and in October he was still receiving Orchids from Kew, and wrote to Hooker :— "It is impossible to thank you enough. I was almost mad at the wealth of Orchids." And again—

"Mr. Veitch most generously has sent me two splendid buds of Mormodes, which will be capital for dissection, but I fear will never be irritable; so for the sake of charity and love of heaven do, I beseech you, observe what movement takes place in Cychnoches, and what part must be touched. Mr. V. has also sent me one splendid flower of Catasetum, the most wonderful Orchid I have seen."

On October 13 he wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker :

"It seems that I cannot exhaust your good nature. I have had the hardest day's work at Catasetum and buds of Mormodes, and believe I understand at last the mechanism of movements and the functions. Catasetum is a beautiful case

of slight modification of structure leading to new functions. I never was more interested in any subject in all my life than in this of Orchids. I owe very much to you."

Again to the same friend, November 1, 1861 :

"If you really can spare another Catasetum, when nearly ready, I shall be most grateful; had I not better send for it? The case is truly marvellous; the (so-called) sensation, or stimulus from a light touch is certainly transmitted through the antennæ for more than one inch instantaneously. cursed insect or something let my last flower off last night."

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Professor de Candolle has remarked* of my father, " Ce n'est pas lui qui aurait demandé de construire des palais pour y loger des laboratoires." This was singularly true of his orchid work, or rather it would be nearer the truth to say that he had no laboratory, for it was only after the publication of the Fertilisation of Orchids, that he built himself a greenhouse. He wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker (December 24th, 1862):

"And now I am going to tell you a most important piece of news!! I have almost resolved to build a small hot-house; my neighbour's really first-rate gardener has suggested it, and offered to make me plans, and see that it is well done, and he is really a clever fellow, who wins lots of prizes, and is very observant. He believes that we should succeed with a little patience; it will be a grand amusement for me to experiment with plants."

Again he wrote (February 15th, 1863):

"I write now because the new hot-house is ready, and I long to stock it, just like a schoolboy. Could you tell me pretty soon what plants you can give me; and then I shall know what to order? And do advise me how I had better get such plants as you can spare. Would it do to send my tax-cart early in the morning, on a day that was not frosty, lining the cart with mats, and arriving here before night? I have no idea whether this degree of exposure (and of course the cart would be cold) could injure stove-plants; they would be about five hours (with bait) on the journey home."

A week later he wrote:

"You cannot imagine what pleasure your plants give me (far more than your dead Wedgwood-ware can give you); H. and I go and gloat over them, but we privately confessed to each other, that if they were not our own, perhaps we should not see such transcendant beauty in each leaf."

* "Darwin considéré, &c.,” Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles 3ème période. Tome vii. 481, 1882.

[CH. XVI. And in March, when he was extremely unwell, he wrote :"A few words about the stove-plants; they do so amuse mc. I have crawled to see them two or three times. Will you correct and answer, and return enclosed. I have hunted in all my books and cannot find these names, and I like much to know the family." His difficulty with regard to the names of plants is illustrated, with regard to a Lupine on which he was at work, in an extract from a letter (July 21, 1866) to Sir J. D. Hooker: "I sent to the nursery garden, whence I bought the seed, and could only hear that it was the common blue Lupine,' the man saying he was no scholard, and did not know Latin, and that parties who make experiments ought to find out the names.""

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The book was published May 15th, 1862. Of its reception he writes to Mr. Murray, June 13th and 18th :

"The Botanists praise my Orchid-book to the skies. Some one sent me (perhaps you) the Parthenon, with a good review. The Athenæum treats me with very kind pity and contempt; but the reviewer knew nothing of his subject.'

"There is a superb, but I fear exaggerated, review in the London Review. But I have not been a fool, as I thought I was, to publish; for Asa Gray, about the most competent judge in the world, thinks almost as highly of the book as does the London Review. The Athenæum will hinder the sale greatly."

The Rev. M. J. Berkeley was the author of the notice in the London Review, as my father learned from Sir J. D. Hooker, who added, "I thought it very well done indeed. I have read a good deal of the Orchid-book, and echo all he says."

To this my father replied (June 30th, 1862):—

"My dear old friend,-You speak of my warming the cockles of your heart, but you will never know how often you have warmed mine. It is not your approbation of my scientific work (though I care for that more than for any one's): it is something deeper. To this day I remember keenly a letter you wrote to me from Oxford, when I was at the Water-cure, and how it cheered me when I was utterly weary of life. Well, my Orchid-book is a success (but I do not know whether it sells)."

In another letter to the same friend, he wrote:

"You have pleased me much by what you say in regard to Bentham and Oliver approving of my book; for I had got a sort of nervousness, and doubted whether I had not made an egregious fool of myself, and concocted pleasant little stinging

*May 24th, 1862.

† June 14th, 1862.

remarks for reviews, such as ' Mr. Darwin's head seems to have been turned by a certain degree of success, and he thinks that the most trifling observations are worth publication.' He wrote too, to Asa Gray :

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"Your generous sympathy makes you over-estimate what you have read of my Orchid-book. But your letter of May 18th and 26th has given me an almost foolish amount of satisfaction. The subject interested me, I knew, beyond its real value; but I had lately got to think that I had made myself a complete fool by publishing in a semi-popular form. Now I shall confidently defy the world. No doubt my volume contains much error: how curiously difficult it is to be accurate, though I try my utmost. Your notes have interested

me beyond measure. I can now afford to d- my critics with ineffable complacency of mind. Cordial thanks for this benefit."

Sir Joseph Hooker reviewed the book in the Gardeners' Chronicle, writing in a successful imitation of the style of Lindley, the Editor. My father wrote to Sir Joseph (Nov. 12, 1862):

66 So you did write the review in the Gardeners' Chronicle. Once or twice I doubted whether it was Lindley; but when I came to a little slap at R. Brown, I doubted no longer. You arch-rogue! I do not wonder you have deceived others also. Perhaps I am a conceited dog; but if so, you have much to answer for; I never received so much praise, and coming from you I value it much more than from any other,"

With regard to botanical opinion generally, he wrote to Dr. Gray, "I am fairly astonished at the success of my book with botanists." Among naturalists who were not botanists, Lyell was pre-eminent in his appreciation of the book. I have no means of knowing when he read it, but in later life, as I learn from Professor Judd, he was enthusiastic in praise of the Fertilisation of Orchids, which he considered "next to the Origin, as the most valuable of all Darwin's works." Among the general public the author did not at first hear of many disciples, thus he wrote to his cousin Fox in September 1862: "Hardly any one not a botanist, except yourself, as far as I know, has cared for it."

If we examine the literature relating to the fertilisation of flowers, we do not find that this new branch of study showed any great activity immediately after the publication of the Orchid-book. There are a few papers by Asa Gray, in 1862 and 1863, by Hildebrand in 1864, and by Moggridge in 1865, but the great mass of work by Axell, Delpino, Hildebrand, and