160 ORGANIC El'OLUTION 



a minute, to remove the honey, when she flew to another 

 slip. This then I took away, when she went to a third ; and 

 soon. In this way --as bees generally suck for three or 

 four minutes - - I induced her to visit all the drops succes- 

 sively before returning to the nest. When she had gone to 

 the nest I transposed all the upper glasses with the honey, 

 and also moved the coloured glasses. Thus, as the drop of 

 honey was changed each time, and also the position of the 

 coloured glasses, neither of these could influence the selec- 

 tion by the bee. 



j 



" In recording the results I marked down successively the 

 order in which the bee went to the different coloured 

 glasses. For instance, in the first journey from the nest, as 

 recorded below, the bee lit first on the blue, which accord- 

 ingly I marked i ; when disturbed from the blue, she flew 7 

 about a little and then lit on the white, which I marked 2 ; 

 when the white was removed, she settled on the green, which 

 was marked 3 ; and so on successively on the orange, yellow, 

 plain, and red. I repeated the experiment a hundred times, 

 usinc; two different hives one in Kent and one 'in Middle- 



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sex --and spreading the observations over some time, so as 

 to experiment with different bees and under varied circum- 

 stances. Adding the numbers together, it of course follows 



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that the greater the preference shown for each colour the 

 low r er will be the number standing against it. 



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" The following table gives the first day's observations in 

 extenso : 



