WHAT GOES ON IN THE APPLE BLOSSOMS 215 
the little halictus and the honey-bee, settling upon the 
stamens, spreads them with her feet and pushes head down- 
ward between until her not very long proboscis reaches the 
nectar in the cup below. Bees are the most important pollen 
distributors for apple blossoms: the larger ones seek both 
nectar and pollen; the lesser ones, pollen only. Bees go 
about the work in a brisk business-like way, passing rapidly 
and directly from flower to flower, visiting many in rapid 
succession and gleaning their food products thoroly. They 
are little disturbed by a person quietly watching them. 
Perhaps the possession 
of a sting may have 
something to do with 
this assurance of man- 
ner. 
Atany rate, the sting- 
less visitors of the apple 
blossoms, true flies and 
butterflies, behave very 
differently. They flit 
Fic ctcaly es AY Sorphus americanus, shout nervously, mak- 
ing circuitous flights 
between visits, and manifesting great wariness. A hand- 
some banded syrphus-fly (fig. 84) settles lightly upon the 
stamens and laps up a little pollen with his proboscis and 
is away again, being gone before one has discovered that 
he is taking flight. A pretty nimble bee-fly darts up toa 
flower, makes a thrust or two at the nectar-cup with its 
exceedingly slender proboscis, and is away again. A fine 
butterfly soars overhead, and finally settles upon a flower 
cluster as if by accident, and sits there languidly dipping 
the tip of his uncoiled proboscis into such nectar cups as 
are in reach. Having greater length of proboscis than the 
apple flower demands, he swings it around like a dipping- 
crane. But he also darts away at the passing of a shadow. 
