66 The Irish Nahi7'alht. April, 
fertilisation. But that is a very different thing from 
sticking to one variety Hke the brown or streaked Wall- 
flower : in other words, letting distinctions of colour stand 
in their way, when a flower shows all the other features 
of the one they are looking for. 
On the other hand, I am sorry to say that bumble-bees 
sometimes show a lack of botanical ability which would 
rather shock a good many members of the Field Club. I 
was standing one day in a bit of waste ground, where two 
very common plants, the Hedge Woundwort (Stachys syl- 
vatica) and the Marsh Woundwort {Stachys palustris) were 
growing together, both in great profusion. A bumble-bee 
arrived, of the species Bombus hortorum {one of the black 
and yellow kinds) which evidently had been gathering from 
Marsh Woundwort in an adjoining field, where that species 
grew by itself. But when this bee got among the mixed 
lot of plants on the waste ground, its perplexity between 
the two species became really quite comical. On its first 
meeting with* the Hedge Woundwort it darted off again, 
as if seeing that there was something wrong. Not satisfied, 
it returned, again darted off, then tried another flower, 
which was also Hedge Woundwort, finally gathered a 
little, and then appeared puzzled again when it got back 
to Marsh. In fact, after wasting a good deal of time with 
its various hesitations, this bee totally gave up the attempt 
to distinguish between Stachys sylvatica and Stachys palus- 
tris, and proceeded to gather with the utmost im.partiality 
from both. Moreover, this was not a case of individual 
stupidity, for a few minutes later a second bee of the same 
species (Bombus hortorum) arrived, and showed the same 
failure to discriminate between these two alUed plants. 
Now, to our eyes the Hedge and Marsh Woundworts show 
no more than a very ordinary family likeness. Even if we 
confine ourselves to the features that a bee might be ex- 
pected to attend to, the colour of the corolla is much deeper 
purple in the Hedge than in the Marsh, the scent — if we 
can call it such — is far stronger and nastier in Hedge 
Woundwort, and that plant has also flowers with deeper 
tubes — a matter of so much importance to the bees that 
