78 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



a vetcli ; and lie sails away with an obvious air of dis- 

 gust, like one distracted from pressing business for a 

 wliile by a bit of idle inquiry. Now he is buried deep 

 in another head of red clover, sucking the honey quickly 

 from each ripe purple floret, one after another, and 

 passing by the over-ripe ones at once, without even a 

 glance, like an experienced workman that he is. 



Indeed, this particular English red clover is so wholly 

 specialized to suit our own humble-bees that it cannot 

 set its seed without them. The proboscis of the hive-bee 

 is not long enough to reach the honey. In New Zealand, 

 for many years it has been necessary to import clover- 

 seed for each crop from England, because there were no 

 humble-bees in the colony ; and so seriously has the 

 want of these useful fertilizers been felt that several 

 attempts have been made, not very successfully as yet, 

 to acclimatize them in the islands. That is perhaps one 

 of the most remarkable practical applications of what 

 seems at first sight purely otiose scientific knowledge 

 that has ever yet been made. I think it is Professor 

 Huxley who quaintly remarks somewhere that the fer- 

 tility of the clover in any district ultimately depends in 

 part upon the number of old maids. For the clover is 

 fertilized by the bees ; but the bees, again, are greatly 

 thinned by harvest-mice ; and the harvest-mice in turn 

 are much devoured by cats ; and the cats, finally, are 

 chiefly kept by old maids. The more cats, therefore, 

 the fewer the harvest-mice, and the fewer harvest-mice 

 the more bees. Omitting the old maids as perhaps too 

 curious an addition to the series, the chain of causes and 

 effects well illustrates the infinite and infinitesimal inter- 

 action, the constant cycle of relations, obtaining between 

 every part of the organic world. 



I pick a head of red clover and a stalk of this creep- 



