126 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP, 
no use to the flower in its present condition, 
they are the last relics of lobes once much 
larger, and still remaining so in some allied 
species, but which in the Dead-nettle, being 
no longer of any use, are gradually disap- 
pearing; the height of the arch has refer- 
ence to the size of the Bee, bemg just so 
much above the alighting stage that the 
Bee, while sucking the honey, rubs its back 
against the hood and thus comes in contact 
first with the stigma and then with the 
anthers, the pollen-grains from which adhere 
to the hairs on the Bee’s back, and are thus 
carried off to the next flower which the Bee 
visits, when some of them are then licked 
off by the viscid tip of the stigma." 
In the Salvias, the common blue Salvia of 
our gardens, for instance,—a plant allied to 
the Dead-nettle,—the flower (Fig. 9) is con- 
structed on the same plan, but the arch is 
much larger, so that the back of the Bee does 
not nearly reach it. The stamens, however, 
have undergone a remarkable modification. 
Two of them have become small and function- 
1 Lubbock, Flowers and Insects. 
PP RO ai 
