320 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



3ft, and stuck on the pane of a window." I have 

 seen this droll performance at Kew, and although 3ft. 

 exceeded the distance, the force of the ejection was 

 most remarkable. Are those who assert that Nature 

 knows no humour altogether justified ? 



The examples so far cited and explained will 

 serve as a guide to those who desire to unravel the 

 secrets of the loves of the flowers. The bee we 

 have seen to play the part of fertiliser, so that upon 

 her action has depended the production of seed in 

 those plants which have lost the power of self-ferti- 

 lisation ; but this is only one aspect of her work, for 

 she, the unconscious instrument, in a Hand unseen, 

 has been made to suffuse the landscape with colour, 

 and strew the path of man with the beauties of the 

 floral world. The homely garb of self-fertilised and 

 anemophilous flowers, such as those of the chick- 

 weed, the nettle, and the dock, indicates what all 

 would have been without insect action. In many 

 genera, the species present the greatest diversity with 

 regard to the size and beauty of their blossoms — e.g., 

 Epilobium angustifolium has handsome and con- 

 spicuous flowers, disposed in dense racemes, and 

 which, being proterandrous, are absolutely dependent. 

 In Epilobium parviflorum, or palustre, the flowers are 

 small and solitary, while they are capable of setting 

 seed by themselves, for their anthers and stigmas are 

 mature contemporaneously. So with the geranium 

 family, the different species indicating by the sizes of 

 their flowers how far they need insect help : the large 

 Geranium pratense, impotent without insects ■ the 

 small pusillum, generally self-fertilised. The reason 



