bflagenta to Pink 



it, when her leg, touching against one of the hair-triggers of the 

 spring trap, pop ! goes the little anther-gun, discharging pollen 

 from Its bores as it flies upward. So delicately is the mechanism 

 adjusted, the slightest jar or rough handling releases the anthers ; 

 but, on the other hand, should insects be excluded by a net 

 stretched over the plant, the flowers will fall off and wither with- 

 out firing off their pollen-charged guns. At least, this is true in 

 the great majority of tests. As in the case of hothouse flowers, 

 no fertile seed is set when nets keep away the laurel's benefac- 

 tors. One has only to touch the hair-trigger with the end of a 

 pin to see how exquisitely delicate is this provision for cross-fer- 

 tilization. 



However much we may be cautioned by the apiculturalists 

 against honey made from laurel nectar, the bees themselves ignore 

 all warnings and apparently without evil results — happily for the 

 flowers dependent upon them and their kin. Mr. Frank R. 

 Cheshire, in " Bees and Bee-keeping," the standard English work 

 on the subject, writes : " During the celebrated Retreat of the Ten 

 Thousand, as recorded byXenophon in his 'Anabasis, 'the soldiers 

 regaled themselves upon some honey found near Trebizonde, 

 where were many bee-hives. Intoxication with vomiting was 

 the result. Some were so overcome, he states, as to be incapa- 

 ble of standing. Not a soldier died, but very many were greatly 

 weakened for several days. Tournefort endeavored to ascertain 

 whether this account was corroborated by anything ascertainable 

 in the locality, and had good reason to be satisfied respecting it. 

 He concluded that the honey had been gathered from a shrub 

 growing in the neighborhood of Trebizonde, which is well known 

 there as producing the before-mentioned effects. It is now agreed 

 that the plants were species of rhododendron and azaleas. Lam. 

 berti confirms Xenophon's account by stating that similar effects 

 are produced by honey of Colchis, where the same shrubs ars 

 common. In 1790, even, fatal cases occurred in America in con- 

 sequence of eating wild honey, which was traced to Kalmia 

 latifolia by an inquiry instituted under direction of the American 

 government. Happily, our Americafn cousins are now never likely 

 to thus suffer, thanks to drainage, the plow, and the bee-farm." 



One of the beautiful swallow-tail butterflies lays its eggs on 

 laurel leaves, that the larvae may feed on them later; yet the 

 foliage often proves deadly to more highly organized creatures. 

 Most cattle know enough to let it alone; nevertheless some fall 

 victims to it every year. Even the intelligent grouse, hard pressed 

 with hunger when deep snow covers much of their chosen food, 

 are sometimes found dead and their crops distended by these 

 leaves. How far more unkind than the bristly armored thistle's is 

 the laurel's method of protecting itself against destruction ! Even 

 the ant, intent on pilfering sweets secreted for bees, it ruthlessly 

 glues to death against its sticky stems and calices. According to 



126 



