THE BEE OR NOT THE BEE, THAT IS THE QUESTION. 343 
ments. For example, a bee is formed to subsist upon nectar, which is se- 
‘creted in flowers. Were the flowers themselves thinking, reasoning be- 
ings, they could not have devised more clever plans, devices, tricks and 
‘pranks to lure the insect to a delicious feast only to make him the flowers’ 
own servant. The feast is never spread till the flowers’ organs are just in 
the proper state of development to assume the right position when the bee 
. enters the doorway. All unconscious of his part in a great scheme, the nec- 
tar-bibber, while imbibing, is powdered or plastered with pollen, upon just 
those parts of the body that will come in contact with the waiting stigma of 
another flower of the same kind, sure to be within the bee’s circuit, and 
‘quite as sure to be visited by him. And to make the cross-pollenation sure, 
the stamens have sometimes shed all their own pollen before the stigma in 
that flower is ready to be fertilized, or are so arranged that the pollen can- 
not reach its own stigma. Then there are varieties of flower clusters in 
which there are blossoms in all stages of development for this same pur- 
‘pose. 
Our late lamented true naturalist, Gibson, thus expresses some of the 
“social customs” of Flora in the reception of invited guests:. “The garden 
‘salvia slaps the burly bumble bee upon the back and marks him for her 
-own as he is ushered in to the feast. The mountain laurel welcomes the 
twilight moth with an impulsive multiple embrace. The desmodium and 
genesta celebrate their hospitality with a joke, as it were, letting their 
threshold fall beneath the feet of the caller, startling him with an explosion 
and cloud of yellow powder, suggesting the day pyrotechnics of the Chinese. 
‘The prickly-pear cactus encloses its buzzing visitor in a golden bower, from 
which he must emerge as dusty as a miller; and the barberry lays mis- 
-chievous hold of the tongue of the sipping bee. The evening primrose, 
with outstretched filaments, hangs a golden necklace about the welcome, 
murmuring noctuid, while the various orchids excel in the ingenuity of 
their salutations. Here one presents a pair of tiny clubs to the sphinx moth, 
gluing them to his bulging eyes, while the cypripedium speeds its parting 
guest with a sticking plaster smeared all over his back. Occasionally the 
welcome becomes aggressive, as in the case of certain arums and, milkweeds, 
the guest being forcibly detained or entrapped for life.” 
Thus, as the insect is dependent upon the flower for food, so is the 
flower dependent upon the insect for the propagation of its kind. For it is 
‘proven not only that the pollen must be deposited upon the stigma that 
the ovary may develop seed, but that the pollen from one flower should 
reach the stigma of another flower to produce the best seed. So various 
insects and the wind are called to assist their neighbors, the flowers. The 
plants which grow an abundance of pollen, like oaks, poplars, birches, pines, 
sedges and grasses, may afford to lose some, for the wind is the agent that 
unites the essential parts, and as he is not a very careful fellow much is 
spilled and wasted. So these plants have learned to provide a plenty. Hav- 
ing little need for the service of insects, these plants do not greet our senses 
with such gay colors and sweet odors as those which have adapted them- 
selves through ages of natural selection and survival, according to Darwin, 
to the particular insect that serves its purpose best. 
What a revelation was this cross-fertilization to those who had con- 
sidered flowers only as ornamental accessions, designed alone to gratify the 
senses of superior man, their color, shape, markings, position, merely mean- 
ingless freaks! 
