BEES AS FERTILISERS. 293 



like a clapper, the stigmatic face in large part closing 

 the narrow opening. The filaments {f, f), eight in 

 number (all but two are removed in the Figure, to 

 avoid confusion), start from the base of the ovary (0), 

 where the nectar is secreted. These filaments, like 

 those of kalmia, act as springs, but, in this case, 

 their function is to hold the anther close against 

 the rod-like style. The anthers, also, are provided 

 with oval openings, or pores (p, B), which are placed 

 at their lower ends ; but since they are held side by 

 side, in a circle around the style, the pore of one is 

 opposite to the pore of the next, so that the escape 

 of pollen is prevented. Each anther consists of two 

 cells, and each of these is furnished with a horn-like 

 process {ap, A), expressly intended to be in the way 

 of the tongue of the nectar-gatherer. She arrives, 

 but the opening is too small to admit her head, and 

 the distance from the mouthof the bell to the sweets 

 sought is as far as she can reach, so her head is 

 brought up into contact with the viscid stigma. 

 Here she leaves her load of pollen (for she wears 

 hair powder, as we shall see, while she is at work 

 on heather), and so accomplishes her work as fertiliser. 

 The tongue, as it runs up, must strike one or more 

 of the sixteen anther appendages, which act like 

 levers, and so disarrange some of the anthers them- 

 selves, and separate their pores, when down rains 

 the fertilising dust upon the bee's little brow (where it 

 remains, as it is beyond the reach of her leg-brushes, 

 so that she gathers no pollen from heather). She 

 sucks her nectar, and passes to the next blossom ; the 

 elastic filaments restoring the anthers to order, and 



