BEES HUMBLE AND OTHERWISE 61 



air is balmy and the sun shining. How many 

 species will he reckon them ? 



Every one knows the story of how humble-bees 

 had to be sent to New Zealand in order that the 

 colonists might raise red clover. Perhaps few 

 know the whole story. It ought to begin with 

 the sorites, invented by Darwin and elaborated by 

 a later hand, to prove that old maids were one of 

 the mainstays of England. Old maids keep cats ; 

 their cats catch mice that destroy bees' nests, 

 thus saving the bees which are essential ,to the 

 fertilization of red clover; red clover nourishes 

 the beef of old England, but for which our valour 

 might starve. 



So when the New Zealanders began to raise the 

 same kind of beef by planting red clover, they 

 found that, through the absence of long-tongued 

 bees in their country, it would not set seed. 

 The obvious thing was to import humble-bees, 

 and with that the story usually ends. 



But there are humble-bees and humble-bees. 

 The yellow -banded humble-bee with the white 

 tail, which happens to have been selected for 

 emigration to New Zealand, is very much given to 

 biting holes through calyx and corolla, and thus 

 taking a flower's honey without fertilizing it. 

 Any one who watches a row of scarlet-runners or 

 a patch of comfrey in blossom, will see blossom 

 after blossom thus bitten, and bee after bee sipping 

 the nectar without one thought of pushing its 

 tongue through the proper flower entrance. 



