28 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



Dogmatism about nature, or about anything else, 

 very often turns out to be an ungrateful cur that 

 bites the hand that reared it. I speak from expe- 

 rience. I was once quite certain that the honey- 

 bee did not work upon the blossoms of the trailing 

 arbutus, but while walking in the woods one April 

 day I came upon a spot of arbutus swarming with 

 honey-bees. They were so eager for it that they 

 crawled under the leaves and the moss to get at the 

 blossoms, and refused on the instant the hive-honey 

 which I happened to have with me, and which I 

 offered them. I had had this flower under ob- 

 servation more than twenty years, and had never 

 before seen it visited by honey-bees. The same 

 season I saw them for the first time working upon 

 the flower of bloodroot and of adder's- tongue. 

 Hence I would not undertake to say again what 

 flowers bees do not work upon. Virgil implies 

 that they work upon the violet, and for aught I 

 know they may. I have seen them very busy on 

 the blossoms of the white oak, though this is not 

 considered a honey or pollen yielding tree. From 

 the smooth sumac they reap a harvest in midsum- 

 mer, and in March they get a good grist of pollen 

 from the skunk- cabbage. 



I presume, however, it would be safe to say that 

 there is a species of smilax with an unsavory name 

 that the bee does not visit, herhacea. The produc- 

 tion of this plant is a curious freak of nature. I 

 find it growing along the fences where one would 

 look for wild roses or the sweetbrier; its recurv- 



