114 SHARP EYES 



fruiterer's display upon the sidewalk is not a circum- 

 stance to it. There seems to be no limit to the vari- 

 eties of rare and curious fruits which this busy bee 

 manages to find in his visits to the flowers. Here are 

 tiny melons and eggs and pears, prickly oranges, and 

 -decorated marbles, queer tea-boxes, bomb-shells, bricks, 

 and odd sorts of packages of all kinds. 



It is true that this particular bee which we have capt- 

 ured may have shown a partiality for some special 

 form of fruit for this one week. Next week he will 

 give his little ones a change, and again the week follow- 

 ing, or with a special bill of fare, perhaps, from day to 

 day. But at any time we are sure to find quite a vari- 

 ety of choice foreign fruits in his basket. Indeed, are 

 they not all foreign to most of us? I have pictured a 

 few, and the reader can decide for himself ; and while 

 he need scarcely expect to find this full assortment in a 

 single field of his microscope, he is quite likely to find 

 some of them ; and if not, is certain to see still other 

 forms of equal strangeness and interest. 



Did you ever imagine for a moment what a display 

 of rare watermelons your fair friend has sported on the 

 tip of her nose after one close sniff of the meadow- lily ? 

 Look at the microscope slide and be convinced. 



In the foreground of my group there is a singular 

 three -lobed affair which is from the enchanter's night- 

 shade. A little to the right of this is another trian- 

 gular shape. Who would ever suppose that this webby 

 pollen of the twilight primrose was made up of such 

 particles as these? The generous mountain-laurel gives 

 us four tiny oranges in a bunch ; for such is the singular 

 atom which those jumping stamens scatter upon the 

 soft wings of twilight moths. That curved specimen 



