sure I can!" said Elsie. She thought a moment and
then added: "It was very nice of that bumble-bee to mistake my nose
for a flower, I'm sure, for it was almost as if he should say,
'Doesn't she look sweet--there must be honey there!' But I guess he
didn't think I was very sweet when I almost scared him to death, poor
fellow!"

V

THE FIRST LIFE ON EARTH

The next day Elsie was so eager for the hour to come when she should
learn the secret of the animals that she had been waiting in the
hammock quite a little while when her mother came down stairs and as
soon as she appeared in sight Elsie clapped her hands joyously, crying
out:

"Now I shall hear how the animals get their honey, sha'n't I, mumsey?
But, mumsey, there isn't anything like the petals of a buttercup on an
animal, unless it's his ears--do animals have their honey there--where
they join the body--like the buttercups?"

Mrs. Edson could not help laughing at this funny notion.

"No, darling," she answered, "animals have no honey anywhere. In the
plants there is honey because they must have something to attract the
insects to them, for they are rooted in the ground and can't move
around to carry their pollen to the other plants. And this pollen must
be carried, you remember, for that is the way, and the only way, in
which little ones are made to be born. So the flower has the honey in
order to pay the insect for marrying it. But animals can move around.
They can go to each other and carry their own pollen, so they do not
need honey or anything but themselves to attract each other. In
animals there is love instead of honey. They love each other, in their
way, and so come together and mingle their eggs and pollen. Only it
is not called pollen in animals, as I said before. It is called
_zoosperms_, pronounced 'zoo-o-sperms.' That is another name that you
must not forget, for it is to the animal what pollen is to the plant.
And in order that little animals may be born it is quite as necessary
that the zoosperms cover or fertilize the eggs, as, with the plants,
it is for the pollen to fertilize the seeds."

"But, mamma," said Elsie, wonderingly, "you said, I think, that every
plant had an ovary--"

"No, darling, I said that every _female_ plant had an ovary."

"Oh, yes, female plant! That has an ovary, and every male plant has a
stamen, and I think you said that they must have, didn't you?"

"Yes, dear, in order to reproduce their kind they must h