24 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE 



upon the pistil helps to make the seeds. The httle 

 hairs keep away crawling insects that might harm the 

 flower, while the beautiful color and the sweet odor 

 attract to the flower the flying insects that help it. 



Did you guess while you were watching the honey- 

 bees and the big, noisy bumblebees going in and out 

 of the flowers and gathering the pollen and the nectar, 

 that they were helping the flowers as well as helping 

 themselves? Did you think that the flowers needed 

 the bees to help them? Yet it is so. 



The beautiful colors are a device to attract the 

 bees; the sweet odor is thrown out to tell the bees 

 that there is nectar to be had. 



For the flowers need the bees. Many of them are 

 quite as dependent upon the bees as the bees are upon 

 them. They need the bees to bring pollen to them 

 from other flowers of their kind so they can have 

 better seeds than they would if the pollen from their 

 own stamens fell upon their own pistils. Many of the 

 flowers could have seeds of their own, while many 

 could not, without the help of the bees. But all seeds 

 are better if the pollen comes from another flower of 

 the same kind. 



So while the bees work steadily gathering pollen 

 and nectar for themselves they are helping the flowers 

 to grow more and more beautiful. Their soft, furry 

 bodies brush off and catch grains of pollen when 

 they visit one flower, and leave these little grains 

 upon the waiting pistil of the next. For the bees 

 always visit the same kind of flowers each day and 

 the flowers are arranged in such a way as to assist the 

 bees in getting and carrying the pollen. That is why 



