I have already observed, that the sage bee chooses the morning for collecting pollen, on account of the dew's enabling her to compress it better; but, as moisture would render propolis less coherent, she gathers this substance when the day is somewhat advanced, and when the warmth of the sun has imparted to it softness and pliancy. These qualities are however soon lost, after it has been detached from the secreting surfaces, and exposed to the oxygenizing power of the air. So rapid is this hardening process, that the bees which store it, oftentimes find some difficulty in tearing it with their jaws from the thighs of its collectors.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

IMPORTANCE OF BEES TO THE FRUCTIFICATION OF FLOWERS.

HONEY is regarded by modern naturalists as of no other use to plants but to allure insects, which, by visiting the nectaries of their flowers to procure it, become instrumental to their fertilization, either by scattering the dust of the stamens upon the stigmata of the same flower, or by carrying it from those which produce only male blossoms to those that bear female ones, and thereby rendering the latter fertile.

No class of insects renders so much service in this way as bees; they have however been accused of injuring vegetables, in three ways: 1st, by purloining for their combs the wax which defends the prolific dust of the anthers from rain; 2ndly, by carrying off the dust itself, as food for their young larvæ; and 3dly, by devouring the honey of the nectaries, intended to nourish the vegetable organs of fructification *.

In defence of his insect protegées, DR. EVANS has observed:

66

First, That the proportion of wax collected

* Darwin's Phytologia.

from the anthers is probably very trifling, it being so readily and abundantly obtainable from honey.

"Secondly, That for any depredations committed on the farina, they amply compensate, by their inadvertent yet providential conveyance of it, on their limbs and corslets, to the female organs of monoecious or dioecious plants; whose impregnation must otherwise have depended on the uncertain winds. This is exemplified in the practice of our gardeners, who in early spring, before they dare expose their hotbeds to the open air, and consequently to the access of insects, insure the fertility of the cucumbers and melons, by shaking a male blossom over each female flower. For the same purpose, and with the same success, a gentleman in Shropshire substitutes a male blossom, in place of the female one, at the top of his embryo cucumber, which instantly adheres, and falls off in due time. To the same kind intrusion of insects we owe the numberless new sorts of esculents and endless varieties of flowers in the parterre :

'Where Beauty plays Her idle freaks; from family diffus'd To family, as flies the father dust

The varied colours run.' THOMSON.

"Thirdly, That in a great many instances, the honey-cups are completely beyond the reach of the fructifying organs, and cannot possibly he

subservient to their use.

Hence SIR J. E. SMITH

believes the honey to be intended, by its scent, to allure these venial panders to the flowers, and thereby shows how highly he estimates their value to vegetation. See his Introduction to Botany. In the same work, the author observes that SPRENGEL has ingeniously demonstrated, in some hundreds of instances, how the corolla serves as an attraction to insects, indicating by various marks, sometimes perhaps by its scent, where they may find honey, and accommodating them with a convenient resting-place or shelter while they extract it. This elegant and ingenious theory receives confirmation from almost every flower we examine. Proud man is disposed to think that

'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,'

because he has not deigned to explore it; but we find that even the beauties of the most sequestered wilderness are not made in vain. They have myriads of admirers, attracted by their charms, and rewarded by their treasures, which would be as useless as the gold of a miser, to the plant itself, were they not the means of bringing insects about it."

Thus the bee, by settling upon and collecting honey from a thousand different flowers, is thereby assisting the great purpose of vegetable reproduction, at the same time that the loads she

carries home enable her to construct receptacles for the reproduction of her own race.

"For the due fertilization of the common Barberry, it is necessary that its irritable stamens should be brought into contact with the pistil, by the application of some stimulus to the base of the filament; but this would never take place were not insects attracted, by the melliferous glands of the flower, to insinuate themselves amongst the filaments, and thus, while seeking their own food, unknowingly to fulfil the intentions of Nature in another department." In some cases the agency of the hive-bee is inadequate to produce the required end; in these the humble-bee is the operator: these alone, as Sprengel has observed, are strong enough for instance, to force their way beneath the style-flag of the Iris Xiphium, which in consequence is often barren. Other insects besides bees are instrumental in producing the same ends; indeed they are necessary instruments: and hence according to the same naturalist, in some places, where the particular insect required is not to be met with, no fruit is formed upon the plant which is usually visited by it, where it is indigenous; for he supposes that some plants have particular insects appropriated to them. The American Aristolochia Sipho, though it flowers plentifully, never forms fruit in our gardens, probably for the reason just assigned. The Date Palm affords a