&6 



them with impunity, liumble bees invariiibly get their legs 

 entangled, but by a vigorous jerk they are able to pull 

 them out, and often with the pollen masses attached. 

 Wasps are more awkward, and twist themselves round and 

 round, but finally escape ; while flies and miller-moths often 

 become hopeless prisoners and an easy prey to prowling 

 s[)iders. Sometimes they succeed in their struggles for 

 liberty by wrenching themselves from their pinioned limbs, 

 which are left standing on the flower as monuments of a 

 freed but mutilated body. A dozen flies have been counted 

 on a single umbel, all securely entrapped by these cruel 

 pollen pockets. Ten times as many honey bees as bumble 

 bees visit this flower, at least in the vicinity of towns, and 

 they appear to be very efficient fertilizers too, yet I have 

 found several dead, held fast by a leg, when there were 

 parts of Ave pairs of pollinia adhering to the others in one 

 instance. This bee appeared to be doing good work, but 

 being a trifle under size, he had not the strength to extricate 

 himself. 



This is an instance of lack of perfect adaptation of flower 

 and insect, for while the bees generally suffer no great in- 

 convenience in getting their su[)ply of food, some, and 

 especially the smaller kind.s of insects, are maltreated, with 

 no possible advantage to the flower, as they do not digest 

 the insects, nor their severed members, like Drosera and 

 Rhododendron viscosum. The above flower was A. Cornuti. 

 Either the many kinds of visiting insects did not have any 

 special taste for color, or else they were willing to sink 

 their tastes and run the risk of sundered limbs I 



Apocyimm androsceviifolium has clusters of small, flesh- 

 colored bell flowers. The almost sessile anthers connive 

 over the pistil, meeting at the toy), but separated below by 

 a very narrow slit. Just opposite each slit at the base of 

 the corolla is a line tooth-like process which projects into 

 the slit, almost closing it but not quite, as there is left the 

 width of a hair between it and the anthers on each side. 



