74 ^-^'^ Irish Naluralist. April, 
to differ in colour as much as it can from all its neighbours 
of different species. It does not want to be visited in 
mistake for them, nor does it want them to be ^'isited in 
mistake for it. And bees, as I have shown, need such 
teaching ; they make mistakes ; they cannot distinguish 
Stachys sylvatica from Stachys palustris, and even the 
Honey-Bee, according to Miiller, sees no difference between 
the flowers of our three common Buttercups:— Raminculns 
hiUhosiis, R. acris, and R. repens. This makes the acute 
discrimination they do show in other cases the more sig- 
nificant; and its helpfulness to the plants is evidently a 
vital force in the story of their evolution. I do not suppose 
that the so-called highest colour in the evolutionar}/ scale 
is any better than those beneath it ; the advantage seems 
to lie merely in having as many different colours as possible 
by w^ay of aids to discrimination. For m}^ part, I think 
the beginning of all colour evolution in flowers was pre- 
mature fading ; that before there were yellow flowers 
yellow appeared in faded leaves, as it does to-day; that before 
there were white flowers some yellow flowers turned white 
in fading, as the Lesser Celandine does to-day ; that before 
there were pink flowers some white flowers faded pink, as 
the Hawthorn does to-day ; and that before there were 
blue flowers some pink or crimson flowers faded blue, or 
nearly blue, as the Heath Pea does to-da}^ That prepared 
the way for possible development by favour of insects ; 
but how they came to favour the seemingly faded in pre- 
ference to the seemingly fresh is a question in prehistoric 
economy which I have no present intention of attempting 
to solve. I think further study of insects in the field may 
some day give us the clue. 
Dublin. 
