PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 13 



which bloom merely at night, nature has provided means 

 by the many moths which fly only at that time, and 

 thus accomplish what the bees perform under the eye of 

 the sun. Here insects are again subservient to the ac- 

 complishment of this great act; for the petals of even the 

 flowers which open in the night only are usually highly 

 coloured, or where this not the case, they then emit a 

 powerful odour, both being means to attract the re- 

 quired co-operation. But of course our clients have 

 nothing to do with these night-blooming flowers, as I 

 am not aware of a single instance of a night-flying bee ; 

 nor are they on the wing very late in the evening, 

 being before sunset, already in their nidus. In those 

 occasional cases where the nectarium of the flower is 

 not perceptible, if the spur of such a flower which usu- 

 ally becomes the depository of the nectar that has oozed 

 from the capsules secreting it, be too narrow for the en- 

 trance of the bee, and even beyond the reach of its long 

 tongue, it contrives to attain its object by biting a hole 

 on the outside, through which it taps the store. The 

 skill of bees in finding the honey, even when it is much 

 withdrawn from notice, is a manifest indication of 

 the prompting instinct which tells them where to seek 

 it, and is a matter of extreme interest to the observer, 

 for the honey-marks the maculae indicantes surely 

 guide them ; and where these, as in some flowers, are 

 placed in a circle upon its bosom, as the mark upon 

 that of Imogen, who had 



" On her left breast 



A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops 

 I' the bottom of a cowslip." Shakspeare. 



they work their way around, lapping the nectar as 



