XVI. 



GUESTS WELCOME AND UNWELCOME 



BEES do more, on the whole, for the fertilization of 

 flowers than any other insects ; but, though plentiful 

 throughout the plains of Europe, they become fewer 

 and fewer as the traveller ascends the Alps ; and in the 

 Tyrol, at a height of from 6,000 to 9,000 feet, he may 

 see hardly so much as a bee a day, and that of the 

 ' humble ' species only. 



There is, it is true, the Ligurian, or yellow Alp-bee, 

 which is a mountain insect, and thrives in some of the 

 southern cantons of Switzerland up to a height of 

 4,500 feet ; but still, the higher one goes the fewer bees 

 there are of any kind; and though there are many 

 beetles and flies, and very many moths and butterflies, 

 there are, on the whole, fewer insects of all kinds in 

 these higher regions; and in the highest, bees are 

 almost entirely absent. 



Yet the flowers of the high Alps are so intensely 

 bright in colour that it is pretty certain they must be 

 visited by insects of some sort ; and, besides being of 

 such vivid colours, the flowers here are made still more 

 striking by being massed together in large beds, instead 

 of being scattered here and there. For the fewer the 



