XX. 



JULY FLOWERS. 



SEE here, straggling over the tall weeds on the bank, 

 to which it clings by its twining curled tendrils, I have 

 lighted on a graceful spray of the true vetch, with its 

 pretty purplish pea-flowers and its long, shiny, grass- 

 green pods. It is a common plant enough, this southern 

 vetch ; for though it is not an aboriginal inhabitant of 

 Britain, it has been cultivated for fodder so long in our 

 meadows that it is now perfectly acclimatized, and 

 spreads readily like a native denizen among pastures and 

 waste patches. But what gives it a special interest at the 

 present moment is that I have caught it, so to speak, in 

 the very act, helping to verify an old surmise as to the 

 true purpose of these little black spots on- the flaps or 

 wings that guard each separate flower-stalk. At the 

 point where the blossoms spring from the stem you will 

 notice two small barbed leaflets stipules we call them 

 technically each with a round dark patch in its hollow 

 centre. Now, if you look at them closely, you will see 

 that the dark patches are moist with some viscid sub- 

 stance ; and if you taste it you will find that it is nothing 

 more or less than a drop of pure honey. 



On this particular vetch-vine, however, each of these 

 leafy nectaries is now being eagerly attacked by small 

 black ants, who are greedily sipping up the honey as fast 

 as it exudes. There cannot be much doubt that that is 

 the very purpose for which the nectaries are put there. 

 Ants are known to be terrible honey thieves ; and they 



