19^- Moffat. — Bees and Flowers, 67 
according to Miiller one of our bumble-bees (the common 
BoDibiis tcrrestris) is unable, with its short proboscis, to 
get at the nectar of Stachys sylvatica at all, though it gathers 
freely from S. palustris. Taking all these differences into 
consideration, it appears to me very singular that bees 
should show themselves quite unable to distinguish between 
the two Woundworts, although they certainly show when 
they first pass from one to the other a suspicion in their 
minds that there is something wrong. 
It may be asked, why should a bee distinguish one 
kind of flower from another, if both kinds contain good 
honey ? I confess that, except for the benefit of the plants, 
I don't see why it should. The fact remains that in 
ordinary cases it is what the bees do. 
I think I remarked at a former meeting of this Club, 
apropos of the Clare Island flora, that a sohtary seed borne 
across the sea to an island where its species was previously 
unknown, even if it had the not-very-hkely good fortune to 
find room for development and become a flowering plant, 
would still have very httle chance of becoming a parent 
of other seedlings if it depended for that purpose — as so 
many plants do — on the visits of insects. I did not mean 
merely (as I think some members understood me to do) 
that no pollen from another plant of its kind could be 
carried to it ; for that is not always necessary to effect 
fertilisation when a number of flowers occur on the same 
plant. I meant that no insect of the right kind would 
go to it at all, unless the plant from which it had last 
been gathering was of the same species, which ex hypothesi 
it could not have been. I may be asked whether the rule of 
regularity is sufficiently adhered to to have this practical 
effect, and I admit that departures from it occur. The 
case of the Woundworts was an instance, and plenty more 
might be given. But that the effect I have claimed does 
follow in nature — I think I can illustrate by an observation 
I made (in July, 1904) on some flowers of our commonest 
Orchis, 0. maculata. One can tell by pulling an Orchis 
flower open whether it has been visited by a fertihsing 
insect or not, for if it has the insect will have carried away 
a2 
