vitable double
procession of ants, both up and down the tree, with the habitual
interchange of comment; and could we but have obtained a closer glimpse
of the pine branch above, we might certainly have observed the queer
spectacle of the small army of ants interspersed everywhere among the
swarm of aphides. Not in antagonism; indeed, quite the reverse; herders,
in truth, jealously guarding their feeding flock, creeping among them
with careful tread, caressing them with their antennae while they sipped
at the honeyed pipes everywhere upraised in most expressive and
harmonious welcome.

This intimate and friendly association of the ants and aphides has been
the subject of much interesting scientific investigation and surprising
discovery. Huber and Lubbock have given to the world many startling
facts, the significance of which may be gathered from the one statement
that certain species of ants carry their devotion so far as literally to
cultivate the aphides, carrying them bodily into their tunnels, where
they are placed in underground pens, reared and fed and utilized in a
manner which might well serve as a pattern for the modern dairy farm.
Indeed, after all that we have already seen upon a single bramble-bush,
would it be taking too much license with fact to add one more pictorial
chronicle--an exhilarated and promiscuous group of butterflies, ants,
hornets, wasps, and flies uniting in "a health to the jolly aphis"?

[Illustration]

_A FEW NATIVE ORCHIDS AND THEIR INSECT SPONSORS_

[Illustration]

In a previous article I discussed the general subject of the
fertilization of flowers, briefly outlining the several historical and
chronological steps which ultimately led to Darwin's triumphant
revelation of the divine plan of "cross-fertilization" as the mystery
which had so long been hidden beneath the forms and faces of the
flowers.

In the same paper I presented many illustrative examples among our
common wild flowers possessing marvellous evolved devices, mechanisms,
and peculiarities of form by which this necessary cross-fertilization
was assured.

Prior to Darwin's time the flower was a voice in the wilderness, heard
only in faintest whispers, and by the few. But since his day they have
bloomed with fresher color and more convincing perfume. Science brought
us their message. Demoralizing as it certainly was to humanity's past
ideals, philosophic, theologic, and poetic, it bore the spirit of
absolute