190 
NATURE STUDY. 
from insects. This only shows how much there is yet to 
be learned about a common wild-flower.” 
How this sly rogue of a gentian must have been laugh¬ 
ing to itself all these years ! But today its secret is out. 
Here are five or six, at least, little velvet-coated lovers, 
looking, to an unscientific observer, just like bumblebees, 
except that they are a third smaller, going steadily about 
their work of cross-fertilization, and utterly oblivious of a 
spectator. 
One hovers over a cluster, looking with practiced eye ; 
yes, there is a bud at the right stage of development. He 
alights and pulls and tears it open at the top. It divides 
naturally into five petals a little way down, and he pushes 
in, clear out of sight. The bud closes smoothly over him, 
and, except for a suspicious fatness and top-heavy sway¬ 
ing, it looks perfectly innocent. Now he is backing out, 
kicking and struggling, his fur all turned the wrong way, 
and covered with pollen dust up to his eyes. Away he 
goes, to another cluster, to repeat the performance, and 
mix the pollen. 
It is perfectly easy; after watching awhile, to tell which 
flowers have been visited and torn open ; and what an in¬ 
tense delight to have thus discovered the secret of the 
closed gentian ! 
Among the influences which have helped forward the 
recent rapid growth of interest in nature study the camera 
must be accorded a place well toward the top of the list. 
The history of the camera has been from in-doors to out of 
doors—from photographing objects in nature to # studying 
and loving them. The Camera , a monthly magazine de¬ 
voted to the advancement of the amateur photographer, is 
doing a splendid work along this line, and is among the 
most welcome of our exchanges. Published at 114-120 
South Seventh Street, Philadelphia. $1 a year. 
