575. 100 (August 



581.16 



595.793 



III 



Bees and the Development of Flowers 



IN the " Origin of Species," Darwin expressed the view that we 

 owe the gay colours and varied forms of our flowers to the 

 selective action of insects. " We may safely conclude," he writes, 

 " that if insects had never existed on the face of the earth, the 

 vegetation would not have been decked with beautiful flowers, but 

 would have produced only such poor flowers as are now borne by 

 our firs, oaks, nut, and ash trees, by the grasses, by spinach, docks, 

 and nettles." 



This theory of the selective action of insects on flowers has 

 been elaborated in great detail by Hermann Miiller in Germany, 

 and by Sir John Lubbock and Mr Grant Allen in this country ; 

 and almost every writer on Natural Selection has accepted this view 

 as a part of the Darwinian scheme of evolution. In this case, as in 

 many others, more recent observers, assuming that the foundations 

 are secure, have spent their time in elaborating structural details in 

 the hypothetical edifice. But when we lay the ingenious conception 

 along the straight rule of facts in nature, the measures do not 

 correspond. In other words, the foundation, the habits of insects 

 with regard to flowers, does not support the hypothetical super- 

 structure. 



Professor Henslow, again, has proposed an amendment, in which, 

 although selection by insects is still the motive power, the modus 

 operandi is different. 



Stated briefly the Darwinian theory is as follows : — 



Insects come to flowers for honey and pollen, and in so doing 

 do not visit all indiscriminately, but select those which take their 

 fancy, or suit them best. If they are seeking honey they will 

 choose those flowers which afford the most, or in which it is most 

 easily obtained ; if they have a special liking for any colour, say 

 blue, they will pick out the bluest flowers ; if any special shape of 

 flower affords them greater convenience for alighting, they will visit 

 these rather than others. Now in any species of flower all these 

 things — amount and position of honey, colour, and shape — vary in 

 different individuals. If, then, insects possessed the requisite dis- 

 crimination, we might suppose them selecting, generation after 

 generation, those flowers in which these desirable points were most 

 highly developed. The flowers thus visited would obtain the 



