346 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



bees were admitted from the first they would simply pilfer all the honey, 

 and the flower would be less diligently visited by its chief pollinators, 

 the humble-bees. Ants and small flies, however, will often squeeze 

 their way in, their great difficulty being rather how to get out than 

 how to gain an entrance a circumstance referred to by Mr. Knapp in his 

 charming Journal of a Naturalist. " It has not perhaps been generally 

 observed," he writes, "that the flowers of this plant ' bulldogs,' as the 

 boys call them are perfect insect traps ; multitudes of small creatures 

 seek an entrance into the corolla through the closed lips, which upon a 

 slight pressure yield a passage, attracted by the sweet liquor that is found 

 at the base of the germen [ovary]; but when 

 so admitted, there is no return ; the lips are 

 closed, and all advance to them is impeded by a 

 dense thicket of woolly matter, which invests 

 the mouth of the lower jaw. 



Smooth lies the road to Pluto's gloomy shade ; 



But 'tis a long unconquerable pain 



To climb to these ethereal realms again. 



But the Snapdragon is more merciful than most 

 of our insect traps. The creature receives no 

 injur}' when in confinement ; but, having con- 

 sumed the nectareous liquor, and finding no 

 egress, breaks from its dungeon by gnawing a 

 hole at the base of the tube, and returns to 

 liberty and light." 



This last statement is evidently a mistake. 

 Mr. Knapp is probably referring to the neat 

 round hole which is made by certain short- 

 tongued bees from without, to enable them to 

 reach the nectar and nullify the flower's pre- 

 cautions for their exclusion. 



The wood-ant (Formica rufa] is a common 

 plunderer of the flower, but, as already re- 

 marked, its chief pollinators are humble-bees, which do no injury to their 

 host, and leave by the door they enter at. " It is most interesting to 

 observe," writes Kerner, " how a humble-bee buzzes about till it alights 

 on the two knobs of the lower lip, and then, having opened the mouth 

 by means of hinges on either side of the corolla, suddenly disappears into 

 the cavity of the flower to fetch honey. In the Calceolarias," continues 

 this writer, " the phenomenon is even more remarkable. The humble-bee 

 sits on the inflated, slipper-like lower lip, and opens the mouth by a light 

 pressure against the upper lip. Then a nectary, hitherto hidden in the 

 slipper-like cavity, comes to light, flap-like, and amply provided with 



FIG. 425. WHITE DEAD- 

 NETTLE (Lamium album). 



The two-lipped calyx is also shown 

 separately (lower figure). 



