'Blossom Hosts and Insect Guests 



Observe, too, the throngs of flies and bees that 

 hasten to visit its parlors. They long ago gave it a 

 place in their posy, and though their taste may not 

 accord with ours, their judgment cannot be disputed. 

 The stigmatic flowers mature on the skunk-cab- 

 bage's spadix before the pistillate ones. Like other 

 blossoms with foul odors, this one is especially 

 adapted for fertilization by scavenger flies. Though 

 bees visit it, they probably do so because at the 

 season when it blooms they have no choice of 

 flowers, and not because it attracts them. Natural- 

 ized European bees are the chief visitors ; and since 

 our flora is not well adapted to them, they have to 

 make many shifts, for a living, that cannot fail to 

 be disagreeable. They often pay with their lives 

 for their trespassing, for while the invited guests 

 find no difficulty, the banquet finished, in leaving 

 the blossom, the bee who has barely forced an en- 

 trance frequently fails to make good his escape 

 through the narrow doorway, and either dies of 

 starvation or falls a victim to the wise spiders who 

 spread their catch-alls within these horns of plenty. 



