122 JBotan^ 



disposed of all their i:>ollen before the stigmas have 

 come to maturity. 



A bee comes to a foxglove ; he is well powdered 

 with yellow pollen, which was shed upon his velvet 

 coat while he sipped honey in some other foxglove. 

 When he enters this fresh flower the pistils are ripe 

 and their viscid stigmas are all ready to catch the 

 pollen from his coat while he is eating, and hold it 

 fast when he goes his way, but the stamens of this 

 present flower are not ripe, and give him no burden. 

 To-morrow he or some other bee will return, and 

 the ripened anthers will send their store to other 

 flowers. If all flowers of a kind opened on the same 

 day this distribution could not be accomplished, but 

 there is always a succession of bloom for days, or 

 even weeks. 



Here is another query : As the pollen cannot fer- 

 tilize seeds of another kind than its own, and these 

 insect rangers ramble where they will, why does it 

 not happen that in nine cases out of ten they go 

 from flower of one kind to entirely another kind, as 

 from asters to golden rod, from daisies to roses, from 

 buttercup to clover? 



The insects are not such reckless expressmen as 

 that. They carry the pollen parcels to their proper 

 places, because — here is a wonder of wonders — be- 

 cause their fixed habit is to go from one flower to 



