The first breathings of spring bring forth the bees. Before the hedge-rows and the trees have burst their buds, and expanded their yet delicate green leaves to the strengthening influence of the air, and whilst only here and there the white blossoms of the blackthorn sparkle around, and patches of chickweed spread their bloom in attractive humility on waste bits of ground in corners of fields,—they are abroad. Their hum will be heard in some very favoured sunny nook, where the precocious primrose spreads forth its delicate pale blossom, in the modest confidence of conscious beauty, to catch the eye of the sun, as well as— “Daffodils, that come before the swallow dares, And take the winds of March with beauty.”—_Shakspeare._ The yellow catkins of the sallow, too, are already swarmed around by bees, the latter being our northern representative of the palm which heralded “peace to earth and goodwill to man.” The bees thus announce that the business of the year has begun, and that the lethargy of winter is superseded by energetic activity. The instinctive impulse of the cares of maternity prompt the wild bees to their early assiduity, urging them to their eager quest of these foremost indicators of the renewed year. The firstling bees are forthwith at their earnest work of collecting honey and pollen, which, kneaded into a paste, are to become both the cradle and the sustenance of their future progeny. Wherever we investigate wonderful Nature, we observe the most beautiful adaptations and arrangements,—everywhere the correlations of structure with function; in confirmation of which I may here briefly notice in anticipation, that the bees are divided into two large groups,—the short-tongued and the long-tongued,—and it is the short-tongued,—some of the _Andrenidæ_,—which are the first abroad; the corollæ of the first flowers being shallow and the nectar depositories obvious, an arrangement which facilitates their obtaining with facility the honey already at hand. These bees are also amply furnished,—as will be afterwards explained,—in the clothing of their posterior legs, or otherwise, with the means to convey home the pollen which they vigorously collect, finding it already in superfluous abundance, and which, being borne from flower to flower, impregnates and makes fruitful those plants which require external agents to accomplish their fertility. Thus nature duly provides, by an interchange of offices, for the general good, and by simple, although sometimes obscure means, gives motion and persistency to the wheel within wheel which so exquisitely fulfil her designs, and roll forward, unremittingly, her stupendous fabric.