POLLEN. 143 



by this means ensuring fertilization. It is a remarkable 

 fact, that in most cases Bees confine themselves in each 

 journey " to a single species of plant." Thus the grand 

 law of Nature, forbidding the union of relatives, is carried 

 out by Bees, who by their visits from field to field, and 

 flower to'flower, give fertility and vigour to vegetable life. 

 A good deal of pollen is carried home by the Bees, adher- 

 ing to their hairs and bodies, but the chief means of con- 

 veyance is the pollen baskets in their hind legs, where 

 it is packed by means of the middle legs. When fully 

 loaded the lumps of pollen are very conspicuous on the 

 Bees as they alight at the hive, within which they quickly 

 run, and arriving at the proper storage place, they stand 

 over the cell, with the legs so placed that on looseriing 

 the loads with the middle legs the lump of pollen shall 

 fall into the cell. This happening, the Bee pushes it with 

 its head safely further in, and then sallies forth for more, 

 leaving to the Nurse Bees the job of ramming down the 

 pollen into a compact mass, which they do with their 

 heads. From the various colours of pollens so stored, the 

 successive layers in the cells have a very curious appear- 

 ance. When the cell is filled it receives a little honey 

 on the top, and then is capped with wax like the honey- 

 cells. Mr. Cheshire records how he mixed some flour 

 in a large tray with a considerable quantity of fine chaff, 

 placing in the corners the trimmings from a comb of 

 honey, the odour of which experience had taught him 

 would soon draw an appreciative crowd. The tray was 

 placed about 10 A.M. in the midst of forty stocks, and on 

 returning in rather more than three hours, he was delight- 

 ed to find the tray, with its contents, almost hidden from 

 sight by hundreds of earnest Bees engaged in packing 

 the flour into the hollows in the legs, generally called the 

 pollen baskets, and strangely enough the pieces of combs. 



