Foxglove and Toadflax 255 
to occupy part of the lower lip, and so to restrict the 
entrance. Closer inspection will reveal folds or pleats 
in the sides of the tube and in the upper lip. When 
a bee attempts to get at the honey and presses its head 
forwards for this purpose, the pleats open out and 
admit the head of the friendly bee. Now, small bees 
who lack either the strength to do it, or the sense 
to see that it has to be done, do not patronise the 
flower, do not even visit the plant. 
The Common Humble-bee (Bombus_ terrestris) 
cannot manage to get the honey in the legitimate 
way ; but being a business-like bee, intent on getting 
honey, he bites a hole through the corolla just above 
the calyx, and through this hole his tongue easily 
reaches the honey. The four stamens rise up and 
meet in the vaulted upper part of the corolla, and 
the anthers lock together by means of the hairs by 
which they are fringed, so that they enclose a central 
space into which they shed their light, dry pollen. 
Each anther-lobe is provided with a stiff, pointed 
appendage which hangs down into the mouth of the 
flower, and the inner edge of the filaments is beset 
with sharp teeth. It will thus be seen that what 
with the yellow pouches of the lower lip, the sharp 
points on the filaments and the combined anthers, the 
actual passage left from the mouth of the flower to 
the honey is very narrow, and unless the bee is to 
hurt his tongue by contact with the filament-teeth, 
he must steer a very even course along the centre of 
the passage. And this brings his proboscis into 
contact with the stigma which bends down in front 
of the anthers, the style lying in the ridge of the 
upper side; and after that has been done with the 
17 
