192 The Book of Bugs. 



by some mischance the pollen it had got itself besmeared 

 with from another strawberry blossom failed to catch on 

 the fuzz over this part, so there no seed was set. The 

 fruit crop fails less because the frost nips the blossoms 

 than because it is too cool for the bees to fly. 



This, then, is why the summer roses bloom. Why do 

 they fade? Why does a man that once dressed himself 

 with punctilious care when he went into the presence of 

 a certain woman now appear before her with his collar 

 off and a pipe in his mouth? Who keeps on running 

 after he has caught the car? 



Specifically this is true of the hive-bee, but it is also 

 generically true. of nearly all bees, except the kinds that 

 have learned the great truth that the poorest way of get- 

 ting a living is earning it. An instance is the Apathus, 

 which looks almost exactly like a bumble-bee, except 

 that it has no pollen-basket and apparently cannot col- 

 lect its own food. The bumble-bees resent its intrusion 

 into their nest at first, but seemingly Apathns has the same 

 knack that some gifted humans have of appealing to the 

 better side of our natures, our generous impulses that 

 prompt us to succor those who through no fault of their 

 own have been reduced from affluent idleness to poverty- 

 stricken idleness. There is something noble about being 

 no-account and useless, something disgraceful about 

 having to work for a living. This is why we feel so good 

 when we give an alms; we are helping somebody to at- 

 tain to that honorable estate we were all intended for if 

 an untoward Fate had not doomed us to a life of slavery. 

 We often think how sweet is the gratitude of those whom 

 we thus assist. So it is, or at least I presume it is. I 

 have never known it to exist, but I have no doubt there 

 is such a thing. I have had a considerable experience 

 in this line, and I have noticed that the attitude of the 



