328 Nature-study review [16:8— Nov., 1920 



list of the true clovers and their characteristics to which we might 

 refer, and a tempting lunch for each, we started out with the vision 

 of a happy day before us. 



Miss Bumblebee greeted us with a mumbled "boom"as she rose 

 from the home hidden in the hayfield, intent upon filling her pollen 

 baskets and gathering nectar for the growing young family in the 

 nest. She had scented a big head of red clover blossoms standing 

 above its sister clusters. Some of the blooms, those at the base of 

 the head, were awaiting her arrival, for had they not sent out per- 

 fumed invitations by messengers of air? Others, near the top of 

 the cluster were not yet ready for guests, — their feast was but being 

 prepared behind closed doors. 



"Hum! Hum!" and a long ribbon -like hairy tongue found its 

 way to the end of a long tube, where Miss Bombus had long ago 

 learned there is nectar to be found. "Come! Come!" she sang as 

 she drew it out. Bobby and I did come, as she bade, but not with- 

 out noticing that she had been dusted with pollen as a parting 

 souvenir of her visit. 



From one sister blossom to another she climbed. The clover 

 head that had stood so straight and sturdy before she alighted, bent 

 over with her weight, and it seemed as if all must end in a catas- 

 trophe either to the blossom or bee. Our fears were groundless, 

 and amazed, we drew closer still to see the reason Muir beauti- 

 fully expresses it when he says, 



"Bees . . . hug their favorite flowers with profound cor- 

 diality, and push their blunt, polleny faces against them like babies 

 on their mother's bosom. And fondly too, with eternal love, does 

 Mother Nature clasp her small bee-babies, and suckle them, multi- 

 tudes at once, on her warm Shasta breast." 



Very carefully examining a tiny red blossom, which the bee had 

 just left, we disclosed some of the secrets that that had been 

 whispered so shyly and sweetly to its ardent lover. We pass the 

 secret on to you. 



Beneath each delicately striped banner, in a tiny pocket which is 

 flanked on right and left by wing-like petals, are hidden nine deli- 

 cate stamens. These hold out their anthers on slender filaments. 

 Eight of them unite to assist in forming a tube reaching backward 

 almost half an inch to the nectary, — the source of sweetness. 

 Between these stamens, pushing its way through their midst, is the 

 pistil, its thread-like style holding a rounded stigma above the 

 heads of the anthers, and leading back to the far end of the tube. 



