PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 183 
particular flowers, the pollen of whose anthers is of those 
colours*. Sprengel, as before intimated’, has made an 
observation similar to that of Dobbs. It seems not im- 
probable that the reason why the bee visits the same 
species of plants during one excursion may be this :— 
Her instinct teaches her that the grains of pollen which 
enter into the same mass should be homogeneous, in order 
perhaps for their more effectual cohesion; and thus Pro- 
vidence also secures two important ends,—the impregna- 
tion of those flowers that require such aid, by the bees 
passing from one to another; and the avoiding the pro- 
duction of hybrid plants, from the application of the pol- 
len of one kind of plant to the stigma of another. When 
the anthers are not yet burst, the bee opens them with 
her mandibles, takes a parcel of pollen, which one of the 
first pair of legs receives and delivers to the middle pair, 
from which it passes to one of the hind legs. 
If the contents of one of the little pellets be examined 
under a lens, it will be found that the grains have all re- 
tained their original shape. A botanist practised in the 
figure of the pollen of the different species of common 
plants might easily ascertain, by such an examination, 
whether a bee had collected its ambrosia from one or 
more, and also from what species of flowers. 
In the months of April and May, as Reaumur tells us, 
the kees collect pollen from morning to evening; but in 
the warmer months the great gathering of it is from the 
time of their first leaving the hive (which is sometimes so 
early as four in the morning) to about 10 o’clock A. M. 
About that hour all that enter the hive may be seen with 
their pellets in their baskets; but during the rest of the 
« ubi supra, 391. b VoL. 1. 4th Ed. 295. 
