WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



the girls hang them in their ears, and so comes 

 the name jewel -weed. Most of them are pure 

 golden yellow or rich orange, splashed and spotted 

 with deeper orange or blood-red; and the lip will 

 be all of this intenser color; but on the same bush 

 may hang blossoms that are yellow without spots, 

 or half yellow and half white, or pure, unspotted 

 white, or (prettiest of all) white suffused and spot- 

 ted with pink, that glov.s rose-red on the lip. As 

 I look at the rich red, pouting lips of these hundreds 

 and hundreds of dangling jewel-blossoms, I think 

 of the line "some bee had stung it newly," when, 

 bizz! a big, white-bodied bee comes straight at the 

 one nearest me, and, clutching it hard as it dips 

 beneath his weight, climbs deeply into the pitcher, 

 then backs out and darts away to another. But 

 he has paid his toll. Above the red lip that at- 

 tracted his notice is a bridle hanging over the co- 

 rolla's mouth, and through it he must crawl to 

 reach the drop of nectar that Nature has placed 

 in the depths of the flower — the bait to her trap. 

 His round, furry back presses hard against the top 

 of the flower as he struggles in through this bridle 

 and out again; and when he emerges it is dusted 

 with white pollen that has been rubbed off the an- 

 thers that, with the pistil, form a firm little brush 



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