212 The Great .World's Farm 



that no bee's proboscis is long enough to reach the nectar 

 by means of a hole made in it. Others have calyxes so 

 hard and tough that even humble-bees and ants are baffled 

 by them. 



But then, the little bees — where big bees can enter, 

 why not little ones? The foxglove, for instance, gapes 

 widely open; and as stamens and pistil lie close under the 

 upper side of the blossom they are quite out of the way 

 of the small bee, which would pass in and out without 

 touching them if it were allowed to find entrance at all. 

 But an observer who watched the flowers carefully 

 throughout a season in North Wales, where they espe- 

 cially abound, saw many small bees make the attempt but 

 only one succeed. It looks easy enough, but the upper 

 part of the blossom is so smooth as to be actually slip- 

 pery, and affords no foothold; and the lower part is beset 

 with stiff hairs, which are very embarrassing to smaller 

 insects, though the humble-bee uses them as rests for 

 her feet, and clings to them while she sucks. 



It is interesting to watch the methodical way in which 

 a humble-bee visits and explores a spire of foxglove, 

 always beginning with the low^est bell and working upwards; 

 but it may not have occurred to all of us that if she 

 reversed her operations the foxglove's hope of cross-fer- 

 tilization would be gone. So it is, however, for the fox- 

 glove-blossoms not only open gradually, beginning with 

 the lowermost, but the pollen is ripe before the pistils are 

 ready for it; and consequently the pistils of the lower 

 blossoms are waiting for pollen — their own being safely 

 gone — while the anthers of the upper blossoms are dis- 

 charging it. If the bee began at the top, she would only 

 bring to the pistils pollen from the upper blossoms on the 



