Dr. Ledsmar shrugged his well shoulder. "They have their points," he
said briefly. "These are all dioecious here. Over beyond are monoecious
species. My work is to test the probabilities for or against Darwin's
theory that hermaphroditism in plants is a late by-product of these
earlier forms."

"And is his theory right?" asked Mr. Ware, with a polite show of
interest.

"We may know in the course of three or four hundred years," replied
Ledsmar. He looked up into his guest's face with a quizzical half-smile.
"That is a very brief period for observation when such a complicated
question as sex is involved," he added. "We have been studying the
female of our own species for some hundreds of thousands of years, and
we haven't arrived at the most elementary rules governing her actions."

They had moved along to a bed of tall plants, the more forward of which
were beginning to show bloom. "Here another task will begin next month,"
the doctor observed. "These are salvias, pentstemons, and antirrhinums,
or snapdragons, planted very thick for the purpose. Humble-bees bore
holes through their base, to save the labor of climbing in and out of
the flowers, and we don't quite know yet why some hive-bees discover and
utilize these holes at once, while others never do. It may be merely the
old-fogy conservatism of the individual, or there may be a law in it."

These seemed very paltry things for a man of such wisdom to bother
his head about. Theron looked, as he was bidden, at the rows of hives
shining in the hot sun on a bench along the wall, but offered no comment
beyond a casual, "My mother was always going to keep bees, but somehow
she never got around to it. They say it pays very well, though."