PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 11 



in confirmatioa of which I may here briefly notice in 

 anticipation, that the bees are di\'ided into two large 

 groups, — the sbort-tongued and the long-tongued, — 

 and it is the short-tongued, — some of the Andrenidce, — 

 which are the first abroad : the coroUse of the first 

 flowers being shallow and the nectar depositories ob^dous, 

 an arrangement which facilitates their obtaining with 

 facility the honey already at hand. These bees are also 

 amply furnished, — as will be afterwards explained, — in the 

 clothing of their posterior legs, or otherwise, with the 

 means to convey home the pollen which they vigorously 

 collect, finding it already in superfluous abundance, and 

 which, being borne from flower to flower, impregnates and 

 makes fruitful those plants which require external agents 

 to accomplish their fertility. Thus nature duly provides, 

 by an interchange of oiBces, for the general good, and 

 by simple, although sometimes obscure means, gives 

 motion and persistency to the wheel within wheel which 

 so exquisitely fulfil her designs, and roll forward, unre- 

 mittingly, her stupendous fabric. 



The way in which the bees execute this object and 

 design of nature, and to which they, more evidently than 

 any other insects, are called to the performance, is shown 

 in the implanted instinct which prompts them to seek 

 flowers, knowing, by means of that instinct, that flowers 

 will furnish them with what is needful both for their 

 own sustenance, and for that of their descendants. 

 Flowers, to this end, are furnished with the requisite 

 attractive qualifications to allure the bees. Whether 

 their odour or their colour be the tempting vehicle, or 

 both conjunctively, it is scarcely possible to say, but 

 that they should hold out special invitation is requisite 

 to the maintenance of their own perpetuity. This, it is 



