Introductory 1 3 



garden at Santo Domingo, Nicaragua, Mr. Belt, the 

 naturalist, sowed some scarlet-runner beans. The soil 

 was good, and the climate was favourable to bean-life, 

 and the scarlet-runners grew and flourished, and finally 

 blossomed abundantly. 



But it was finally! for here their career ended. 

 They did not produce a single bean among them, 

 simply because the right labourers were not at hand to 

 give the requisite help. 



The garden in which the beans grew had been 

 recently taken from the forest, by which it was still 

 surrounded ; and that the labourers in this part of the 

 farm were not idle was quite evident from the abundant 

 luxuriance of the vegetation. But it was tropical 

 vegetation, and as it did not include scarlet-runners, 

 these were in the position of foreigners, whose appeals 

 for assistance were not understood. It was in vain 

 they put forth the bright flowers, which were well- 

 known signals in their native land, and would there 

 have brought them the helpers they needed no one 

 noticed them. They were made welcome to the soil, 

 the rain and the sunshine, and then they were left to 

 themselves and their master, with the result already 

 mentioned no fruit ! 



And who were the gardeners whose absence proved 

 to be of such vital importance ? Humble bees, only 

 humble bees! and, indeed, only the particular species 

 of humble bees which wait upon scarlet-runners. 

 There were plenty of others, but they did not under- 

 stand, though very probably they would have come 

 to do so in the course of a few seasons. As it was, 

 however, failing these insect labourers, there was 



