130 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



bees, which are masters of the situation, having 

 already turned the best part of the year to account 

 they can eke out but a very scanty subsistence, 

 and so, like others in reduced circumstances, they 

 take to the mostly illegal occupation of living by 

 their wits. The humble-bee, no doubt, finds it 

 saves time to obtain possession of the honey in the 

 manner described, the stratagem in all probability 

 being principally resorted to in order to forestall her 

 rivals by obtaining first access to the honey stored 

 in young flowers which have not yet opened of their 

 own accord. This interfering with the purposes 

 of nature is not to be commended, perhaps, but the 

 poor humble-bees, for all that, deserve, in my opinion, 

 considerable credit for the ingenuity thus displayed 

 in seeking to hold their own under difficult circum- 

 stances in this hard world. Any one may convince 

 himself of the keen competition which prevails 

 amongst bees of all sorts towards the end of the 

 season if he will take the trouble to observe our 

 fields or hedgerows for a very short space at this 

 time of year, or if he will count the number of times 

 in an hour that a particular blossom is visited by 

 a bee or would be visited if it contained honey, as 

 it is not necessary for a bee to alight on a flower to 

 know that she must go away empty. Darwin has 

 left it on record, after carefully watching certain 

 flowers, that each one was visited by bees at least 

 thirty times in a day, and it cannot be supposed 

 that the little visitors in such circumstances find 

 much to reward their industry. It has been also 

 shown that they will often visit from twenty to 

 twenty-five flowers in a minute. It is very interest- 

 ing to note that on such occasions bees always keep 



