276 SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ON THE 
ablement un examen rapide, puis fondent tout droit sur un 
Dahlia intact.” This behaviour is natural from our point of 
view, because they were attracted by the coloured ray-flowers; 
but seems quite inconsistent with Prof. Plateau’s contention that 
scent is the only attraction, because the honey-bearing florets had 
been removed. So far from supporting his view, therefore, these 
last observations weaken, if they do not disprove it. 
The experiments which the Society has already done me the 
honour of publishing, and which I subsequently brought together 
in my two books * Ants, Bees, and Wasps,’ and ‘The Senses and 
Intelligence of Animals,’ seem to me conclusively to have proved 
that Bees and other insects can distinguish, and are attracted by, 
the colours of flowers. 
I have, however, made some more experiments, following to 
some extent the idea of Prof. Plateau, and endeavouring to get a 
crucial test between the respective attractions of scent and colour. 
I brought a Hive-bee up to my room, and, when she had got ac- 
eustomed to come to some honey on a particular part of the table, 
I put out, a foot on one side of the place where the honey had been, 
the flower-head of an Eryngium amethystinum after removing the 
blue bracts, with a drop of honey on an ordinary glass microscopic 
slide ; and, a foot on the other side of the place where the honey 
had been, a similar slip of glass with a drop of honey, and placed 
close to it the blue bracts. "These, I need not say, are brilliantly 
blue, and measure about 4 inches across. The flower-head, on 
the contrary, though an inch’ in length, is not conspicuously 
coloured. Now, if insects were attracted by the scent of the honey 
alone, they would in such circumstances go to the drop of honey 
near the flower-head, or to the flower-head itself, and not to the 
bracts. "While if they were attracted both by colour and scent, 
they would go sometimes to the one and sometimes to the other, 
—probably, as the bracts are so conspicuous, more often to the 
honey close to them. For shortness, I will indicate the flowet- 
head and the drop of honey near it as F, the drop close to the 
bracts as B. 
A few minutes after the original drop of honey was removed, the 
bee returned at 3.59, and, after buzzing about a little, settled on B 
After each visit I transposed the flower-head and bracts, leaving: 
however, the two drops of honey. This, of course, eliminate 
any possible difference as regards the honey. The Bee returned 
as follows :— 
