ARTIFICIAL FERTILISATION. 279 



hive bee as the one par eccellence in the art of fertilisation in the 

 production of crops that are useful for food or otherwise to man. 

 In the majority of entomophilous plants it is almost impossible 

 for fructification to take place but by contact with an outside 

 agent, and the only agents designed by Nature by their construc- 

 tion, instinct, and their domestic requirements, are members of 

 the bee family. In all parts of the world there are many thousands 

 of species and varieties of insects. Yet out of this vast army of 

 unique and, in some instances, grotesque forms, having peculiarities 

 adaptable for the life they have to' lead, and for obscuring them- 

 selves from enemies by resembling the plants, etc., upon which they 

 live, the only ones that collect and store pollen are bees. When other 

 insects carry pollen it is entirely accidental. Bees cannot live with- 

 out it. It is their bread of life. Their young cannot be nursed 

 to maturity so as to perform the active duties they have to follow 

 without it. In the insect world there are artisans in paper-making, 

 in spinning, in weaving, in basket-making, in house-building, in 

 masonry, in sawing, in carpentry, in upholstering, &c, each of 

 them having tools or instruments specially suited for carrying out 

 the work Nature has intended them to perform ; but the only ones 

 having • instruments and appliances for gathering, carrying and 

 storing pollen are bees. Pollen is removed from the anthers and 

 conveyed to the receptive organs of flowers by every variety of insect 

 that alights on them during the time the pollen is distributive. 

 By reason of the viscid nature of the pollen grains of most entomo- 

 philous flowers it adheres to the body or legs of any insect that 

 may by chance walk over it, and is conveyed by them elsewhere. 

 If it were brought in contact with the pistil of a flower of its own 

 variety, the act of fertilisation would be as efficacious as if it were 

 carried by bees ; but these cases are purely accidental, and the 

 successes arc only "few and far between." Not so. with the bee. 

 Every movement of the bee in the direction of fertilisation is a 

 studied one designed purely by Nature to accomplish the perpetua- 

 tion of the plant it is at work Upon. The anthers of some flowers 

 are so situated as to discharge' the pollen only on some very par- 

 ticular spot of the external anatomy of the bee — her head, upper 

 surface of the thorax, chest, tongue-sheath, etc., and the stigma 

 is so placed in the flower that only that portion of the bee that 

 has received the pollen would be capable to effect the purpose. 



I have used the term bees- (Apidce) frequently to indicate any 

 member of that extensive famtilyl but all or every variety of- bee 

 although both honey and pollen gatherers, are not capable of gene- 



