By the way, it is a dreadful thing to kill bumble bees. They do the work of pollenizing for many a deep-cupped flower, and without their aid and the aid of some such insects, everybody would starve, for there would be no seed and no new plants to take the place of the old ones as they died, and animals and birds and mankind would perish of starvation.
Moths and Butterflies Help, Too
This work of pollenizing depends for the most part on bees, but many butterflies and moths feed on nectar in the same way. Most moths’ tongues are very long, and many long-necked flowers depend upon them to bring pollen on their soft, furry bodies to the pistils. The moths fly at night, so many long-necked flowers, like the moonflowers, do not open their blooms nor shed their sweet odors in the day time, but wait to show their sweetness until their favorite insect is flying.
Now you see that Beauty Butterfly and night moths are not just a gorgeous bit of living color. Such moths and Beauty Butterfly accomplish much good.
“Well, Miss Gardener said she lay out in the hammock, just as you are lying, Mary Frances, studying just what I have told you, only in a much more difficult way, and she kept saying over and over to herself, ‘Corolla, calyx, sepals, stamens, pistil,’ in order that she might know her lesson, when all at once her book began to slip out of her hand and she could not seem to cling to it at all. She heard the dull thud as it hit the ground.”
“Are you ready?” asked a strange buzzy voice. “I’m always in a hurry, you see. Are you quite ready?”
“I’m ready,” answered Miss Gardener; “ready for anything; but please, where are you, who are you, and what am I to be ready for?”
And again the buzzy voice spoke: “Ready to go with me?”
Miss Gardener looked around toward where the buzzy voice seemed to come from. There, sitting on a rose nearby, was a honey bee.
“Oh,” gasped Miss Gardener, “I’m—that is—I——”