THE BEES AND THE LUPINE 57 



than simply seeing bees visit flowers and go away with pollen. 

 The pupil has seen the real secret of the showy flowers. They 

 furnish food for insects, nectar and pollen, to entice them to visit 

 them ; they furnish colored signals in the corolla to enable the 

 insect to find them by sight, and perfumes to help them by smell, 

 and then arrange some kind of a trap, sometimes elaborate, some- 

 times very simple, which requires the insect to pass over the pol- 

 len and stigma, so that the pollen of one plant is brought to the 

 stigma of the other by the insect's body. 



With this lesson well seen there are numberless others possible 

 that can follow in the same lines. Every form of flower may be 

 subjected to inquiry as to how it makes use of insects, and 

 what insects it makes use of. For example, flowers like the 

 petunia, with the corolla formed into a funnel with a long narrow 

 tube with the nectar at the bottom, can not depend on bees, as 

 they can not reach the nectar. Let the class find by their own 

 work what insects it does depend upon. The sphinx moth often 

 visits it. This moth has a long tongue, which it usually keeps 

 coiled up under its head. This it uncoils and thrusts down into 

 the tubes of the corolla. 



This will lead to the study of the structure and ways of many 

 insects, for they are adapted to the flower as is the flower to them. 

 For example, not only the lupine and its contrivances may be 

 made the subject of study, but the bee and its contrivances. 

 When she gathers pollen from the plant, let the pupil determine 

 how she disposes of it. The bee can be seen to scrape the pollen 

 off and pack it into a lump on the part of her hindermost leg 

 called the "basket." If one ot the hind legs of a bee is exam- 

 ined it will be found that the division of the leg on which she car- 

 ries the pollen is covered with a number ot hairs, which holds 

 the pollen she packs there. The next division of the leg below 

 the pollen basket is covered with rows of stiff hairs and is used 

 as a brush to sweep off the pollen. Other kinds of bees have hair 

 brushes on the abdomen which they use for carrying pollen. 



