HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



in 



advances, innumerable bright-hued flowers spread 

 out their beauty to charm the eye — the mental eye of 

 man — mayhap of bird and beast, although some do 

 -deny to these latter any appreciation of beauty. Now 

 humble-bees abound. Far less choice are they in 

 their selection : the poisonous monkshood and fox- 

 glove are rifled of their stores ; antirrhinums seem 

 especial favourites ; and a host of brightly-tinted 

 ilowers are visited, sometimes hours before the hive- 

 bee is stirring ; nor cease the active creature's 

 labours until the latter has long since retired for the 

 night. Like the hive-bee, however, they show no 

 marked preference for blue; nor do they disdain to 

 rifle of their nectar the blossoms of the sycamore, 

 lime, snowberry, &c. ; and it does not appear 

 that in their case any more than in that of the 

 hive-bees, there is a tittle of evidence to support 

 the "taste for blue" theory, which seems to be 

 founded upon a fallacy, and one possessing not 

 -even the equivocal merit of plausibility. Of course, 

 ^s with the hive-bee, when blue honey-yielding 

 ilowers predominate, we may reasonably expect to 

 find that there they most do congregate. "I'is, too, 

 evident that all bees must obtain honey sotnruihere, 

 and during an unpropitious season, when honey 

 is scarce, flowers almost unvisited when honey is 

 abundant are again and again visited by roamers, 

 and the whole floral world is ransacked in a bootless 

 quest for sweets — bootless, for 'tis one thing to seek, 

 quite another to find ; and it is not because in such 

 bad seasons bees visit in succession every flower, 

 blue or otherwise, that, therefore, they are actually 

 collecting siovts; yet many observers (!) cannot even 

 see a tired bee temporarily resting upon a leaf 

 without too hastily assuming that it is gathering in a 

 heavy harvest. They would probably arrive at the 

 same conclusion if they saw it resting upon a 

 cabbage. 



Let us consider how the matter must of necessity 

 stand if the long-tongued insect selection theory be 

 admitted. One of three things must, inevitably, 

 have happened. Either, firstly, vanquished in the 

 struggle for existence, the short-tongued must have 

 been extinguished — eliminated out of creation, and 

 none would now survive ; or, secondly, the process 

 of specialisation must have been continued by the 

 shorter-tongued bees, who would have a manifest 

 advantage over their still shorter-tongued brethren, as 

 their longer-tongued had had over them, the process 

 being continued through the whole series of nectar- 

 seekers until it reached its utmost limits, when none 

 but the simplest forms of tongued insects would be 

 found — these associated with the most primitive 

 iloral structures ; or, thirdly, matters must have 

 remained in statu quo — or nearly so — the balance 

 being scarcely, if at all, disturbed. 



Elect whichever we will of these three alternatives, 

 we shall find it beset with difficulties. As regards 

 the first, 'tis evident enough that the short-tongued 



insects have not been eliminated, since they yet 

 abound, and probably they numerically far out- 

 number the long-tongued.* This, however, is specu- 

 lation. How is it that thus far such have contrived 

 to survive in so one-sided a struggle for existence ? 



With respect to the second alternative. If the 

 theory were true, not only might we reasonably 

 expect to find a much larger proportion of specialised 

 blue, or indeed of any rich-coloured flowers than 

 are actually to be found, but, most assuredly, should 

 oftener find particular species of bees frequenting 

 certain specialised flowers — and no others — to which 

 both by structure and habit they had become 

 adapted. 



Sir John Lubbock f mentions, on the authority of 

 H. Miiller, six species of insects which visit ex- 

 clusively six species of plants. Small number 

 indeed, and probably far below the actual number 

 that will in time be recorded. It, however, helps to 

 show upon how unsound a basis it is sought to found 

 the theory. 'Tis plain that where certain flowers 

 offer to certain species of bees, or other insects, 

 greater inducements or facilities than are to be 

 found in other flowers, these will be most frequently 

 visited, and so through the whole range of insect 

 economy ; but this in no wise proves that there has 

 been developed within the insects a preference for 

 such particular flowers on account of their colours, 

 nor does it prove that they have in any wise " stereo- 

 typed and perpetuated " these colours by in future 

 selecting them to the neglect of those less vivid. 



Of course there will ever be accidental adaptations 

 of insects to plants — plants to insects. Our knowledge 

 on the subject is, however, at present very limited, 

 nor can we determine which are merely accidental 

 and which designed ; on the contrary, where there 

 exist flowers of various colours, honey equally attain- 

 able, the inference would be just the other way : the 

 result would be, not the ^'perpetuation " of certain 

 intense colours, but rather the production of yet 

 greater varieties, as in the case of flowers of some 

 species, but of various colours, which bees visit indis- 

 criminately, thereby producing endless varieties, the 

 pale-coloured acquiring bright tints when fertilised by 

 pollen of richer-coloured ; the rich-coloured, on the 

 other hand, becoming paler when fertilised by pollen 

 from the pale-hued. There, also, it will be seen that 

 variety — mutability — is the law ; not perpetuation — 

 permanence. 



Every tyro is aware of the difficulties which beset 

 the floriculturist in his endeavours to preserve in. 

 their purity the strains of richly-coloured flowers, his 

 efforts in this direction being constantly rendered 

 abortive owing to the visits of insects, which convey 

 the poUeti of the flower of one colour to that o 



• By the way, these terms are remarkably vague and flexible, 

 seeing that relatively to their size the tongue of a short-tongued 

 bee may be much longer than that of a long-tongued. 



t " British Wild Flowers in Relation to Insects," p. 2i. 



