298 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



JPseneshe of that advantage in fertilizing the fig, which 

 the cultivators of that fruit in the East have long sup- 

 posed, is doubted by Hasselquist and Olivier % both 

 competent observers, who have been on the spot. Our 

 own gardeners, however, will admit their obligations 

 to bees in setting their cucumbers and melons, to which 

 they find the necessity of themselves conveying pollen 

 from a male flower, when the early season of the year 

 precludes the assistance of insects. Sprengel asserts, 

 that apparently with a view to prevent hybrid mixtures, 

 insects which derive their honey or pollen from diffe- 

 rent plants indiscriminately, will during a whole day 

 confine their visits to that species on which they first 

 fixed in the morning, provided there be a sufficient 

 supply of it''; and the same observation was long since 

 made with respect to bees by our countryman Dobbs*. 

 Thus we see that the flowers which we vainly think 



are 



— — ^— " born to blush unseen. 



And waste their fragrance on the desert air," 



though unvisited by the lord of the creation, who boasts 

 that they were made for him, have nevertheless myriads 

 of insect visitants and admirers, which, though they pil- 

 fer their sweets, contribute to their fertility. 



I am, &c. 



* Hasselqukst's Travsls, 253. Latr. Uist. Nat. xiii. 204. 



* Willd. Grundriss, 352. * r/dl. Trans, xlvi. 536. 



