180 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



colours 3 . Sprengel, as before intimated 5 , has made an 

 observation similar to that of Dobbs. It seems not im- 

 probable that the reason why the bee visits the same 

 species of plants during one excursion may be this : 

 Her instinct teaches her that the grains of pollen which 

 enter into the same mass should be homogeneous, in order 

 perhaps for their more effectual cohesion ; and thus Pro- 

 vidence also secures two important ends, the impregna- 

 tion of those flowers that require such aid, by the bees 

 passing from one to another ; and the avoiding the pro- 

 duction of hybrid plants, from the application of the pol- 

 len of one kind of plant to the stigma of another. When 

 the anthers are not yet burst, the bee opens them with 

 her mandibles, takes a parcel of pollen, which one of the 

 first pair of legs receives and delivers to the middle pair, 

 from which it passes to one of the hind legs. 



If the contents of one of the little pellets be examined 

 under a lens, it will be found that the grains have all re- 

 tained their original shape. A botanist practised in the 

 figure of the pollen of the different species of common 

 plants might easily ascertain, by such an examination, 

 whether a bee had collected its ambrosia from one or 

 more, and also from what species of flowers. 



In the months of April and May, as Reaumur tells us, 

 the bees collect pollen from morning to evening ; but in 

 the warmer months the great gathering of it is from the 

 time of their first leaving the hive (which is sometimes so 

 early as four in the morning) to about 10 o'clock A.M. 

 About that hour all that enter the hive may be seen with 

 their pellets in their baskets; but during the rest of the 

 day the number of those so furnished is small in compa- 

 *ubi supra, 301. b VOL. 1.2.99. 



