2 1 6 The Golden Rule for Flowers 



the case, the nectar is concealed in some deep and safe 

 recess where wet cannot injure it, many flowers have 

 lines or dots upon some of their petals to point out 

 where it may be found, and so save their visitors' 

 time. 



Many bees have a regular pollen-brush of thick hairs 

 under their tails, with which they sweep up the grains ; 

 and even when their object is nectar, not pollen, they 

 are almost sure to carry off a few grains by brushing 

 against the anthers of the blossom they are visiting. 

 For all bees are more or less covered with hairs, some 

 of which, being webbed, are especially adapted for 

 holding the pollen-grains ; while the grains themselves 

 cling all the better for the spines and hairs with which 

 they are often beset. 



Small insects are useful for fertilizing small flowers, 

 but they may light upon a large flower, creep in, and 

 even rob it of nectar, without coming into contact with 

 the pollen at all, which is almost impossible in the case 

 of the larger species of bees, with their hairy bodies. 

 The bee, too, has another recommendation : it has to 

 visit many flowers before its crop is filled with nectar, 

 and both hive-bees and humble-bees, especially the 

 latter, seem generally, though not invariably, to confine 

 their visits to one kind of flower on each journey — a 

 very important matter, as pollen of different sorts 

 would in most cases be useless. 



Of course, the bee may, and does, convey pollen 

 from blossom to blossom of the same plant, which may 

 produce self-fertilization of a sort ; but when it has 

 visited all the blossoms on one plant, and flies off to 

 another, the fir^t blossoms visited there miust needs 



