:M, TWO BIRD- LOVERS IN MEXICO M= 



the (to him) delicious musky scent is wafted out. He 

 makes his way upward and at once finds himself at 

 the entrance of a long narrow tube, thickly beset Avith 

 small hairs, whose tips, all pointing inward, meet at 

 the centre. Before he enters he may, if he chooses, 

 turn about and fly away, but once within he is doomed. 

 " Lasciate ogni S2)eranza, vol cli entrate, " — All 

 hope abandon, ye who enter in, — might have been fitly 

 inscribed upon the flower's portal. Strive and struggle 

 as he may, the sharjj-pointed hairs only force him 

 onward the faster, until the tunnel widens out into a 

 circular chamber. This is free from the sharp recurved 

 hairs and it is comfortably warm, in addition to which 

 the soft-walled cells lining the little prison-chamber 

 are, in midge estimation, good eating. For perhaps 

 two days the little fellow is thus confined : then the 

 anthers of the flower burst open and liberate a quantity 

 of meal-like pollen. This is indeed a feast, and the 

 black midge falls to and gorges himself, at the same 

 time getting his body thickly covered with the powdery 

 substance. 



But even the most delectable dainties cloy at last, 

 and, though the prison-cell has provided him with 

 warmth, shelter, and food, yet the little midge becomes 

 restless and seeks to escape. Sooner or later he finds 

 the tunnel opening, through which he found his way 

 into the blossom, and here a strange thing happens. 

 The stockade of hairs no longer bars the way. The 



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