r 



A SHARP LOOKOUT 



and then, while on the win^;, brushes it off 

 with the fine brush on certain of her feet, 

 and by some jugglery or other catches it in 

 her pollen basket. One needs to look long 

 and intently to see through the trick. Pliny 

 says they fill their baskets with their fore 

 feet, and that they fill their fore feet with 

 their trunks, but it is a much more subtle 

 operation than this. I have seen the bees 

 come to a meal barrel in early spring, and 

 to a pile of hardwood sawdust before there 

 was yet anything in nature for them to 

 work upon, and, having dusted their coats 

 with the finer particles of the meal or the 

 sawdust, hover on the wing above the mass 

 till the little legerdemain feat is performed. 

 Nature fills her baskets by the same sleight- 

 of-hand, and the observer must be on the 

 alert who would possess her secret. If the 

 ancients had looked a little closer and 

 sharper, would they ever have believed in 

 spontaneous generation in the superficial 

 way in which they did ; that maggots, for 

 instance, were generated spontaneously in 

 putrid flesh ? Could they not see the spawn 

 of the blow-flies ? Or, if Virgil had been 

 a real observer of the bees, would he ever 

 have credited, as he certainly appears to 



201 



