We have already learnt from the life of a primrose that plants can make better and stronger seeds when they can get pollen-dust from another plant, than when they are obliged to use that which grows in the same flower; but I am sure you will be very much surprised to hear that the more we study flowers the more we find that their colours, their scent, and their curious shapes are all so many baits and traps set by nature to entice insects to come to the flowers, and carry this pollen-dust from one to the other.

So far as we know, it is entirely for this purpose that the plants form honey in different parts of the flower, sometimes in little bags or glands, as in the petals of the buttercup flower, sometimes in clear drops, as in the tube of the honeysuckle.  This food they prepare for the insects, and then they have all sorts of contrivances to entice them to come and fetch it.

You will remember that the plants of the coal had no bright or conspicuous flowers.  Now we can understand why this was, for there were no flying insects at that time to carry the pollen-dust from flower to flower, and therefore there was no need of coloured flowers to attract them.  But little by little, as flies, butterflies, moths and bees began to live in the world, flowers too began to appear, and plants hung out these gay-coloured signs, as much as to say, “Come to me, and I will give you honey if you will bring me pollen-dust in exchange, so that my seeds may grow healthy and strong.”

We cannot stop to inquire to-day how this all gradually came about, and how the flowers gradually put on gay colours and curious shapes to tempt the insects to visit them; but we will learn something about the way they attract them now, and how you may see it for yourselves if you keep your eyes open.

For example, if you watch the different kinds of grasses, sedges and rushes, which have such tiny flowers that you can scarcely see them, you will find that no insects visit them.  Neither will you ever find bees buzzing round oak-trees, nut-trees, willows, elms or birches.  But on the pretty and sweet-smelling apple-blossoms, or the strongly scented lime-trees, you will find bees, wasps, and plenty of other insects.

The reason of this is that grasses, sedges, rushes, nut-trees, willow, and the others we have mentioned, have all of them a great deal of pollen-dust, and as the wind blows them to and fro, it wafts the dust from one flower to another, and so these plants do not want the insects, and it is not worth their while to give out honey, or to have gaudy or sweet-scented flowers to attract them.

But wherever you see bright or conspicuous flowers you may be quite sure that the plants want the bees or some other winged insect to come and carry their pollen for them.  Snowdrops hanging their white heads among their green leaves, crocuses with their violet and yellow flowers, the gaudy poppy, the large-flowered hollyhock or the sunflower, the flaunting dandelion, the pretty pink willow-herb, the clustered blossoms of the mustard and turnip flowers, the bright blue forget-me-not and the delicate little yellow trefoil, all these are visited by insects, which easily catch sight of them as they pass by and hasten to sip their honey.