CYPRIPEDIUM 7 



which still retained their pollen, I took them to my studio. 

 I then captured a bumblebee, and forcibly persuaded him to 

 enact the demonstration which I had so long waited for him 

 peacefully to fulfil. Taking him by the wings, I pushed 

 him into the fissure by which he is naturally supposed to 

 enter without persuasion. He was soon within the sac, 

 and the inflexed wings of the margin had closed above him. 

 He is now enclosed in a luminous prison, and his buzzing 

 protests are audible and his vehemence visible from outside 

 the sac. Let us suppose that he at length has become 

 reconciled to his condition and has determined rationally 

 to fulfil the ideal of his environment, as he may perhaps 

 have already done voluntarily before. The buzzing ceases, 

 and our bee is now finding sweet solace for his incarceration 

 in the copious nectar which he finds secreted among the 

 fringy hairs in the upper narrowed portion of the flower. 

 Having satiated his appetite he concludes to quit his close 

 quarters. After a few moments of more vehement futile 

 struggling and buzzing, he at length espies, through the 

 passage above the nectary fringe, a gleaming light as from 

 two windows. Toward these he now approaches. As he 

 advances the passage becomes narrower and narrower, 

 until at length his back is brought against the overhanging 

 stigma. So narrow is the pass at this point that the efforts 

 of the bee are distinctly manifest from the outside in the 

 distention of the part and the consequent slight change 

 in the droop of the lip. In another moment he has passed 

 his ordeal, and his head is seen protruding from the window- 



