[27]

* to p. 39 Use under Habit of Bees

I may give one instance in regard to the  action of insects In the genus Viola odorata Spengel has shown that the pollen cannot escape owing to the manner in which the anthers will their scales close round the pistil, till disturbed by the proboscis of the insect: he proved this by covering up some flowers & leaving others uncovered (Der Entdeckte &c p. 390), & finding pollen shed in formerlatter, but never in the protected flowers.

(Now in 1841 I watched almost daily & many times a day  several patches of the V. tricolor or Heartease for seven weeks, & never saw an insect of any kind visit them; when suddenly on two successive days I saw several darklysmall Humble-bees visiting aall the flowers. In the next year after a fortnight watching in vain I again saw two or three species of Bees (& a Fly dusted with pollen) visiting most of the flowers & I found pollen profusely shed ofon the lower petals, all around the stigma; & I noticed the same fact on the same day with some plants of wild V. Tricolor.

Now in both those years, I noticed a few days after the visit of the Bees & of the Fly (I marked the flower visited by the Fly) a great number of the flowers on the several clumps set suddenly withered, as if &the germens werehad been set.

Hence I cannot in the least doubt that I I saw in these Humble Bees, that priests who at celebrated the marriage ceremony of the Heartease.