114 SHARP EYES 



fruiterer's display upon the sidewalk is not a circum- 

 stance to it. There seems to be no limit to the vari- 

 eties of rare and curious fruits which this busy bee 

 manages to find in his visits to the flowers. Here are 

 tiny melons and eggs and pears, prickly oranges, and 

 decorated marbles, queer tea-boxes, bomb-shells, bricks, 

 and odd sorts of packages of all kinds. 



It is true that this particular bee which we have capt- 

 ured may have shown a partiality for some special 

 form of fruit for this one week. Next week he will 

 give his little ones a change, and again the week follow- 

 ing, or with a special bill of fare, perhaps, from day to 

 day. But at any time we are sure to find quite a vari- 

 ety of choice foreign fruits in his basket. Indeed, are 

 they not all foreign to most of us? I have pictured a 

 few, and the reader can decide for himself; and while 

 he need scarcely expect to find this full assortment in a 

 single field of his microscope, he is quite likely to find 

 some of them ; and if not, is certain to see still other 

 forms of equal strangeness and interest. 



Did you ever imagine for a moment what a display 

 of rare watermelons your fair friend has sported on the 

 tip of her nose after one close sniff of the meadow-lily? 

 Look at the microscope slide and be convinced. 



In the foreground of my group there is a singular 

 three -lobed affair which is from the enchanter's night- 

 shade. A little to the right of this is another trian- 

 gular shape. Who would ever suppose that this webby 

 pollen of the twilight primrose was made up of such 

 particles as these? The generous mountain-laurel gives 

 us four tiny oranges in a bunch ; for such is the singular 

 atom which those jumping stamens scatter upon the 

 soft wings of twilight moths. That curved specimen 



