186 tHB BKB-KESPER'g GUlf)B ; 



der the public f^enerally are deceived. These specimens are 

 fossil coral, which the paleontologist places in the genus 

 Favosites ; favosus being a common species in the Northern 

 United States. They are very abundant in the lime rock in 

 northern Michigan, and are very properly denominated honey- 

 comb coral. The animals of which these were once the skele- 

 tons, so to speak, are not insects at all, though often called so 

 by men of considerable information. 



The species of the genus Favosites first appeared in the 

 Upper Silurian rocks, culminated in the Devonian, and dis- 

 appeared in the early Carboniferous. No insects appeared till 

 the Devonian age, and no Hymenoptera — bees, wasps, etc.— 

 till after the Carboniferous. So the old-time Favositid reared 

 its limestone columns and helped to build islands and conti- 

 nents untold ages — millions upon millions of years — before any 

 flower bloomed, or any bee sipped the precious nectar. In 

 some specimens of this honey-comb coral (Fig. 80) there are to 

 be seen banks of cells, much resembling the paper-nests of 

 some of our wasps. This might be called wasp-comb coral, 

 except that both styles were wrought by the self-same animals. 



POLLEN OR BEE-BREAD. 



An ancient Greek author states that in Hymettus the bees 

 tied little pebbles to their legs to hold them down. This fan- 

 ciful conjecture probably arose from seeing the pollen-balls on 

 the bees* legs. 



Even such scientists as Reaumur, Bonnet, Swammerdam, 

 and many apiarists of the last century, thought they saw in 

 these pollen-balls the source of wax. But Huber, John Hunter, 

 Duchet, Wildman, and others already referred to, noticed the 

 presence and function of the wax-scales already described, and 

 were aware that the pollen served a different purpose. 



This substance, like nectar, is not secreted nor manufac- 

 tured by the bees, only collected. The pollen-grains form the 

 male element in plants. They are in plants what the sperma- 

 tozoa or sperm-cells are in animals ; and as the sperm-cells are 

 much more numerous than the eggs or germ-cells, so pollen- 

 grains are far more numerous in plants than are the ovules or 



