the apiary, though unquestionably large numbers of bees are
annually destroyed by its excessive hospitality. I have repeatedly found
honey-bees dead beneath the plants, and my cabinet shows a specimen of a
large bumblebee which had succumbed to its pollen burden, its feet, and
even the hairs upon its body, being fringed deep with the tiny
clubs--one of the many specimens which I have discovered as the "grist
in the mill" of that wise spider which usually spreads his catch-all
beneath the milkweeds.

* * * * *

Allied to the milkweed is another plant, the dogbane (_Apocynum_), which
has a similar trick of entrapping its insect friends. Its drooping,
fragrant, bell-shaped white flowers and long slender pods will help to
recall it. But its method of capture is somewhat similar to the
milkweed. The anthers are divided by a V-shaped cavity, into which the
insect's tongue is guided as it is withdrawn from the flower, and into
which it often becomes so tightly wedged as to render escape impossible.
I have found small moths dangling by the tongue, as seen in the
illustration below.

[Illustration]

INDEX

[Illustration]

Agalena, house-spider, 7.

Alypia, grape-vine-moth, 160.

Andromeda (_A. ligustrina_),
singular greeting to the bee, 126;
interior arrangement of flower, 128;
release of the pollen, 129.

Angraecum, orchid of Madagascar, with nectary eleven inches long, 219.

Ants,
herding the aphides, 166;
a model honey-farm, 167.

"Ant-holes," 61.

Aphides, plant-lice,
founders of the feast, 165;
herded by ants, 167.

_Apocynum_, dogbane, 236.

_Aprophora_, spume-bearer, 82.

_Arethusa bulbosa_, orchid, 175.

_Argiope_, field spider, 8.

Aristolochias, 119.

Aristotle, 23.

Arum, wild:
--Position of the anthers, 141;
progressive stages of change, 142.

_Asclepias cornuta_, milkweed, 227.

_Asilus_, "robber-fly", 8.

Axell, a follower of Darwin, 116.

Bees:
--The drone of, 5;
a counterpart of clover; dependence of clover on, 117;
manner of approach, 121;
black-and-white banded, 126;
approach to the blue-flag, 131;
experiment with the bumblebee, 209;
his escape from the flower, 210;
manner of cross-fertilizing, 212;
manner of conveying the pollen, 218;
his difficulties with the milkweed flower, 233;
the cumbersome handicap, 234;