232 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



But the red leaf may be supplemented, and the 

 argument drawn from it strengthened, by the 

 consideration of certain flowers, in the fertilisation of 

 which bees may be supposed to have played no 

 part. 



Most people know the beautiful and brilliant 

 little crimson flowers of the hazel. The conspicuous 

 red part is the stigma, and Hermann Miiller considers 

 that this colour has been developed without any 

 selective insect agency : 



" From the structure of the flowers, and from insects 

 never visiting the stigmas, I am convinced that the 

 hazel is a strictly anemophilous plant ; that the red 

 colour of its stigmas is solely an effect of chemical 

 processes connected with the development of the 

 female flowers to maturity, just in the same manner 

 as in the female flowers of the larch-tree and some 

 other coniferae." ("Nature," May 13th, 1875.) 



Yet if insects had been observed visiting the 

 flowers, the red would doubtless have been put down 

 to their selective action. 



Another case is that of the salad burnet (Poterium 

 Sanguisorba). This plant bears its stamens and 

 pistils on different flowers, and probably depends on 

 the wind for fertilisation. The perianths of both 

 hinds of flower are green, but in the one the stigmas 

 are of a lovely pink colour. 



Whatever, therefore, may be thought of the 

 argument from the leaf, we have here conclusive 

 proof that red may be developed in flowers without 

 the selective action of insects. It is true, it is the 

 stigma which is coloured in both cases ; but if this 

 can be accomplished without insect agency, it is 

 simple dogmatism to say that petals might not be so 

 also. 



Mr. Tansley's objection, that the red of the leaf is 

 not fixed — although I do not exactly know in what 

 sense it is not fixed — cannot be urged against these 

 examples. 



We have in them cases in which colour has been 

 "stereotyped and perpetuated" without insect 

 selection. 



My second point, that bees are not necessarily 

 attracted by red, is admitted as a thing obvious to 

 all : its antagonism to the theory is evaded by the 

 statement, that bees are not supposed to care for red 

 and blue simply as colours. 



" At any rate, whether bees prefer blue and red to 

 other colours or not, I suppose no one has ever 

 asserted that they do so in an aesthetic sense. The 

 contention of the upholders of this theory is rather 

 that they have learned to consider blue or red as an 

 index of high specialisation ; and therefore of 

 flowers . . . presenting peculiar adaptations for their 

 visits." 



With these words as it appears to me, Mr. Tansley 

 deals a death blow to the theory he is defending. If 

 the bee only goes to a blue flower because it has 

 learned by experience that these are specially adapted 



for its visit, it cannot have had any share in the 

 development of the colour. 



Let us go back for a moment — in imagination — to 

 the time, when, according to the theory, flowers 

 had not yet become blue. The bees' taste for blue, 

 being simply the result of experience, does not exist. 

 So the few flowers with a chance shade of blue, 

 among the green, white, yellow, red — whichever 

 we assume they were — are not specially selected by 

 the bees visiting the blooms for honey, and do not 

 obtain any advantage : the chance variations towards 

 blueness, not conferring any benefit, are not seized 

 upon by selection — they disappear. 



How are the bees to be guided to the particular 

 flowers of Mr. Grant Allen's Monk's-hood which 

 " began to acquire a bluish tinge," if their taste for 

 blue is a thing still to be acquired ? In fact, should 

 the above statement be accepted, my arguments are 

 superfluous : the whole theory collapses under Mr. 

 Tansley's assertion. 



But is it true, that no one has asserted that bees 

 prefer blue in an aesthetic sense — that is, I infer, 

 simply as a colour ? 



I will leave the following quotations from Mr. 

 Grant Allen to speak for themselves. 



Hyacinths are said to " have acquired a blue 

 pigment to attract the eyes of azure-loving bees." 



" Bees are particularly fond of blue." 



Of the beetle, it is said, " he has certain special 

 tastes for certain special hues and blossoms," and 

 " It receives a sense impression from the bright hue 

 of a flower, and is irresistibly attracted towards it, as 

 the moth is to the candle." 



I think the author of the above would wish to 

 apply these generalisations as to the beetle's tastes to 

 the bee likewise. Further observations have simply 

 strengthened the conclusion. 



The conclusion I drew from my observations re- 

 specting the flowers visited by bees, was, that the 

 latter did not specially select red and blue — that they 

 showed no preference for these colours in flowers. 

 (To be continued.) 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



The editor of "Scientific News" gives the fol- 

 lowing good wrinkle : — " The marsh rosemary 

 (Ledum pains tre), otherwise known as Labrador tea, 

 is a shrub growing to the height of three feet or four 

 feet. It grows in swampy districts, in the north- 

 west of Ireland and Scotland, in the countries around 

 the Baltic, in Siberia, and the Dominion, especially 

 Labrador. The alcoholic extract of its leaves has a 

 very peculiar but not absolutely disagreeable smell. 

 If it be diluted with water, and applied to the skin, 

 no sand-fly, mosquito, etc., will, to the best of our 

 knowledge, settle on the person thus protected. We 

 have heard of this remedy and of its efficacy so 



