A SHARP LOOKOUT 17 



injure the grape and other fruits by puncturing the 

 skin for the juice 1 The most patient watching by 

 many skilled eyes all over the country has not yet 

 settled the point. For my own part, I am con- 

 vinced that they do not. The honey-bee is not the 

 rough-and-ready freebooter that the wasp and bum- 

 blebee are ; she has somewhat of feminine timidity, 

 and leaves the first rude assaults to them. I knew 

 the honey-bee was very fond of the locust blossoms, 

 and that the trees hummed like a hive in the height 

 of their flowering, but I did not know that the 

 bumblebee was ever the sapper and miner that 

 went ahead in this enterprise, till one day I placed 

 myself amid the foliage of a locust and saw him 

 savagely bite through the shank of the flower and 

 extract the nectar, followed by a honey-bee that in 

 every instance searched for this opening, and probed 

 long and carefully for the leavings of her burly 

 purveyor. The bumblebee rifles the dicentra and 

 the columbine of their treasures in the same man- 

 ner, namely, by slitting their pockets from the out- 

 side, and the honey-bee gleans after him, taking 

 the small change^ he leaves. In the case of the 

 locust, however, she usually obtains the honey with- 

 out the aid of the larger bee. 



Speaking of the honey-bee reminds me that the 

 subtle and sleight-of-hand manner in which she fills 

 her baskets with pollen and propolis is characteristic 

 of much of Nature's doings. See the bee going 

 from flower to flower with the golden pellets on 

 her thighs, slowly and mysteriously increasing in 



