ii4 FLASHLIGHTS ON NATURE 



which enable them to guard their embryo young 

 from the assaults of insects. 



Every species of clover and there are many 

 has some dodge of its own for thus protecting 

 its growing pods and seeds from the grubs which 

 would destroy them. I only propose, however, 

 to examine in detail here one more of these 

 dodges. We have another kind of clover, a 

 good deal like Dutch clover at a casual glance, 

 and commonly confounded with it by unobservant 

 people, though, as we shall soon see, the habits 

 and manners of the two kinds are in reality 

 very different. The strawberry clover, as it is 

 called, is a somewhat lower and smaller species 

 than Dutch clover, which it resembles in its 

 creeping stems and in its rich foliage. But the 

 flowers are not separately stalked in the head, 

 so that they cannot turn down after fertilisation 

 like those we have just been considering. More- 

 over, the stems and flower-heads are much hairier; 

 and this difference is due to the two facts that the 

 strawberry clover is smaller, and has a shorter tube 

 than its Dutch relation. It would thus be easy for 

 ants and other crawling insects to creep up the 

 stem and steal the honey, which is intended for 

 the use of fertilising visitors. To prevent this mis- 

 fortune, and to keep its nectar for the regular 

 customers, the strawberry clover produces a num- 

 ber of hairs on the stem, which baffle the ants, to 

 whom such hairs are an impenetrable thicket. But 

 you may ask, " Why are not ants just as good as 

 bees for the clover ? " For this reason : flying 



