The next figure represents the very curious arrangement of the stamens in the _Erica tetralix_, or common heath. These, eight in number, are seen standing round the style, at about half its length. Each is held by a long filament (only one of which is shown in the figure), and is armed with a horn-like process. When the anthers are ripe, the pollen would escape from openings in their sides, were it not that the little slits abut on each other. When, however, a bee visits the flower, and thrusts up her proboscis, this strikes against one of the little horns, and pulls apart its anther from the rest. Pollen then drops on the bee's head, to be carried by it to other blossoms, which, while receiving a portion brought to them, in their turn give the bee a supply to carry to other flowers. It is a very salutary thing for the propagation of the heath that bees have such a strong liking for its nectar, and are thus induced to perform, albeit unconsciously, the process of fertilisation. [Illustration: Fig. 81.--Section of Strawberry Bloom.] In the strawberry the stigmas are ripe long before the pollen is ready; and hence we understand why the Creator has arranged that the nectar of these blossoms should be so attractive to the bees, whose visits are so necessary for the development of the fruit. When fertilisation takes place, growth proceeds in the ordinary manner, and with results so satisfactory to mankind. Where pollen fails to fall on any of the multitudinous stigmas, we have a shrunken, hard, greenish mass. Any dish of strawberries will show where this has happened. It is said that to produce one perfect specimen of the fruit, from 100 to 300 separate fertilisations must be effected. In the raspberry and blackberry again, each drupel, or little fleshy portion, of which very many make up one so-called berry, has had its own stigma, which an insect has visited; and hence again, we understand how it is that the flowers have been so largely endowed with nectar, as to entice the bees most freely to visit them. [Illustration: Fig. 82.--Section of Apple Bloom.] In apple and pear blossoms we have other instances of the stigmas coming to maturity before the anthers; and, therefore, they require the intervention of bees for their fertilisation. Peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums, greengages, and, we might almost venture to assert, all our choicest and most valuable fruits, are dependent for their perfection upon the busy searchers after honey; and many a market-gardener would greatly increase his chances of good crops of fruit, were he to maintain a few stocks of bees in his orchards, and allow access for the active workers to his trees blossoming under glass-houses.