There is a great deal of hum and stir about a plant where there are so many insects. It is just as it is where there are many people together. And as some people make more noise than others, so it is with insects. So, too, some insects are more bustling than others.
Insects mostly gone from flowers at night.
At night the scene is changed. The buzzing of the bees and the singing of the flies are done. The insects have got through with their work and their play, and have gone to the places where they sleep. If you look just at dusk at a plant that you have seen all alive with insects in the day, you will find all quiet. The insects are all gone, except, perhaps, some little ones that have gone into the flowers to sleep on the soft and elegant bed they find there.
The chilled bumble-bee.
Sometimes insects, like people, get into trouble by staying out late at night. On a cool morning I found a bumble-bee clinging to a flower. He was very torpid, and he could not fly when I poked him with a little stick. He could only buzz and thrust out his sting. After the sun warmed him he flew off. I suppose that he stayed out so late that he got chilled, and could not make his way home to his nest.
Questions.—Tell about the humming-bird, and about his nest. Give the anecdote told about a humming-bird. Tell about the Frenchman and his strawberry-plant. What is said of the variety of flies that we see about flowers? And of the variety of bugs? What is said of the hum and stir about some plants? How is it at night? Tell about the bumble-bee.
CHAPTER XI.
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT FLOWERS.
Why man is compared to a flower.