"Blossom Hosts and Insect Guests 



dead bees thus entrapped in a single umbel of blos- 

 soms, having been exhausted in their struggles for 

 escape ; and a search among the flowers at any time 

 will show the frequency of this fatality, the victims 

 including gnats, flies, crane-flies, bugs, wasps, 

 beetles, and small butterflies. In every instance 

 this prisoner is found dangling by one or more 

 legs, with the feet firmly held in the grip of the fis- 

 sure. 



Almost any bee which we may catch at random 

 upon a milkweed gives perfect evidence of his sur- 

 roundings, his toes being decorated with the tiny 

 yellow tags, each successive flower giving and tak- 

 ing, exchanging compliments, as it were, 'with its 

 fellows. Ordinarily this fringe can hardly prove 

 more than an embarrassment ; but we may fre- 

 quently discern an individual here and there which 

 for some reason has received more than his share of 

 the milkweed's compliments. His legs are con- 

 spicuously fringed with the yellow tags. He rests 

 with a discouraged air upon a neighboring leaf, 

 while honey, and even wings, are seemingly for- 

 gotten in his efforts to scrape off the cumbersome 

 handicap. 



An interesting incident, apropos of our embar- 

 rassed bee, was narrated to me by the late Alphonso 



io6 



