44 Trona. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis 



they rushed into the empty artifacts of the color and 

 pattern from which they had been trained to exj)ect 

 honey would have convinced any unbiased spectator that 

 to those bees certain artifacts had acquired a meaning 

 and that those insects were exercising the faculty of 

 recognition. 



Less than two per cent of mistakes were made, and in 

 the light of subsequent experiments, these were instruc- 

 tive. Two consisted in selecting a box mottled red and 

 green for one painted with alternating red and green 

 longitudinal stripes; two in selecting a box with black 

 and white longitudinal stripes for one with red and 

 green longitudinal stripes; the other six consisted in 

 selecting a box marked with alternating red and green 

 transverse stripes for one marked with red and green 

 longitudinal stripes. Remembering that these colors 

 were not optically pure, and recalling the experiments 

 by which Frisch^^ claims to have demonstrated that bees 

 are red-green color blind, these are just the kind of mis- 

 takes we would expect bees to make if they are guided 

 by landmarks. 



Further experimental confirmation that recognition is 

 one of the mental traits of bees and wasps may be found 

 in the published works of Foreel (1. c), Lubbock (1. c), 

 the Peckhams (1. c), Loveir^, and others.^* 



^^Frisch, Karl v. Ueber den Farbensinn der Bienen und die Bliimen- 

 farben. Muencbener medizinischen Wocbcnscbrift, 1913, pp. 1-10. 



^^ Lovell, John H. The Color Sense of the Honey Bee. Tbe Anier, 

 Nat., vol. 46, pp. 83-107. 



The Color Sense of the Honey Bee: Can Bees Dis- 

 tinguish Colors? Amer. Nat., vol. 44, pp. 673-692. 



X* In a series of papers extending over a decade ["Comment les 

 fleurs attircnt les insects." "Un filet empeche-t-il le passage des in- 

 sectes." "Noiivelles recherches sur les rapports entre les insectes et 

 les fleurs." "Recherches expcrimentalcs sur la vision chcz les arthro- 

 podes," etcl Platean describes a number of experiments which he 

 thinks demonstrate that these insects do not make visual discrimina- 

 tions. Forel and Lovell have pointed out so conclusively the defects 

 of his experiments and the fallacies of his conclusions that it was not 

 thought necessary to discuss them in the body of this article. 



