"The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

the plant propagates out of its head; the body remains perfect and
entire, of a harder substance than when alive. From this insect the
natives making a coloring for tattooing."
*(4) In mines and natural caves we find a species of cryptogamous
fungus that emits an intense phosphorescence.
*(5) The orchis, scabius and valisneria.
*(6) The corolla of this flower (Aristolochia Clematitis), which
is tubular, but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is inflated
into a globular figure at the base. The tubular part is internally
beset with stiff hairs, pointing downwards. The globular part contains
the pistil, which consists merely of a germen and stigma, together
with the surrounding stamens. But the stamens, being shorter than
the germen, cannot discharge the pollen so as to throw it upon the
stigma, as the flower stands always upright till after impregnation.
And hence, without some additional and peculiar aid, the pollen must
necessarily fan down to the bottom of the flower. Now, the aid that
nature has furnished in this case, is that of the Tiputa
Pennicornis, a small insect, which entering the tube of the corrolla
in quest of honey, descends to the bottom, and rummages about till
it becomes quite covered with pollen; but not being able to force
its way out again, owing to the downward position of the hairs,
which converge to a point like the wires of a mouse-trap, and being
somewhat impatient of its confinement it brushes backwards and
forwards, trying every corner, till, after repeatedly traversing the
stigma, it covers it with pollen sufficient for its impregnation, in
consequence of which the flower soon begins to droop, and the hairs to
shrink to the sides of the tube, effecting an easy passage for the
escape of the insect." Rev. P. Keith-System of Physiological Botany.

"Pshaw!" said the king.
"'Quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in which the bees
and the birds are mathematicians of such genius and erudition, that
they give daily instructions in the science of geometry to the wise
men of the empire. The king of the place having offered a reward for
the solution of two very difficult problems, they were solved upon the
spot- the one by the bees, and the other by the birds; but the king
keeping their solution a secret, it was only after the most profound
researches and labor, and the writing of an infinity of big books,
during a long series of years, that the men-mathematicians at length
arrived at the identical solutions which had been given upon the
spot by the bees and by the birds.'"*

* The bees- ever since bees were- have been constructing their cells
with just such sides, in just such number, and at just such
inclinations, as it has been demonstrated (in a problem involving
the profoundest mathematical principles) are the very sides, in the
very number, and at the very angles, which will afford the creatures
the most room that is compatible with the greatest stability of
structure.
During the latter part of the last century, the question arose among