I 1 6 SHARP EYES 



These atoms are all interesting and beautiful objects 

 under the microscope, and to the botanist who ex- 

 amines the bread-basket of the bee they may form a 

 complete telltale record of the insect's round among the 

 flowers. 



But this golden grist of the bees is not always an un- 

 mixed blessing. Like its prototype in human affairs it 

 occasionally reduces its owners to the most complete 

 slavery. The milk-weed blossom will afford a ready il- 

 lustration of this, and will well repay a careful exami- 

 nation. The pollen of this flower is concealed from 

 view, and is a veritable trap. It does not wait to be 

 gathered, but clasps the legs of unwary insects, and often 

 accumulates in such quantity as to prove a serious han- 

 dicap to the flight of its victim. I have found bees thus 

 helpless, and a careful search upon almost any cluster 

 of milk-weed blossoms will disclose some diminutive or 

 weak insect held prisoner by the pollen which it had 

 not strength to remove, and thus made a helpless prey 

 to the first prowling ant that chances its way. 



