2i8 THE FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. 
and even plants to follow fixed laws, we should 
scarcely have looked for such regularity in the life 
of the active, independent busy bee. Yet we see that 
she, too, has her own appointed work to do, and does 
it regularly and in an orderly manner. In this lecture 
we have been speaking entirely of the bee within the 
hive, and noticing how marvellously her instincts 
guide her in her daily life. But within the last few 
years we have learned that she performs a most curi- 
ous and wonderful work in the world outside her 
home, and that we owe to her not only the sweet 
honey we eat, but even in a great degree the beauty 
and gay colours of the flowers which she visits when 
collecting it. This work will form the subject of our 
next lecture, and while we love the little bee for her 
constant industry, patience, and order within the hive, 
we shall, I think, marvel at the wonderful law of na- 
ture which guides her in her unconscious mission of 
love among the flowers which grow around it. 
