106 NATURAL SCIENCE [August 



other, it requires a discriminating taste and constancy on the part 

 of the bee. It involves, moreover, the assumption, that while cer- 

 tain simple and regular flowers visited by insects have remained 

 simple, others originally equally regular and simple have had im- 

 pressed on them all sorts of irregular and complex forms by the 

 same insects visiting them in the same way and for the same pur- 

 pose. If the direct action of the insect in visiting one simple and 

 regular flower is to elongate one petal and form a hood of another, 

 how has it been possible for it to visit a host of others for countless 

 generations without producing any such effect, or altering the 

 simple regularity of their form ? It is not probable, then, that 

 Professor Henslow's amendment will be adopted, at least in these 

 days of scientific doubt as to the transmission of acquired characters. 

 Other insects, it is generally admitted, are even less discriminat- 

 ing, and more erratic, in their visits to flowers than bees. Hence, 

 if bees cannot be accepted as evolvers of new species of flowers by 

 their selective action, the whole theory of insect selection fails. 

 It remains a fact that no alternative explanation of the origin of 

 the colour, scent, and form of flowers on Darwinian principles has 

 yet been brought forward. In this fact, indeed, we have the only 

 — if insufficient — reason why the theory has been so long retained. 



Gr. W. BULMAN. 



REFERENCES 



1. Darwin, C. — " Origin of Species." London, 1859. 



2. Lubbock, Sir John. — " British Wild Flowers in relation to Insects." London, 



1875. 



3. Darwin, C. — "Cross- and Self-fertilisation of Plants." London, 1876. 



4. Bennett, A. W. — " Constancy of Insects in their visits to Flowers." Journ. Linn. 



Soc. Zool., vol. xvii., p. 175. 1883. 



5. Christy, R. M. — " On Methodic Habits of Insects when visiting Flowers." Ibid., 



p. 186. 



6. Allen, Grant. — " The Colours of Flowers." London, 1882. 



7. Mllller, Hermann. — " The Fertilisation of Flowers " [English translation]. London, 



1883. 



8. Henslow, Rev. George.— " Floral Structures." London, 1888. 



9. Bulman, G. W.— " On the Supposed Selective Action of Bees on Flowers." 



Zoologist [3], vol. xiv., p. 422. 1890. 

 10. .— " The Constancy of the Bee." Science Gossip, 1892. 



