476 BEES AND FLOWERS. 



Perhaps M. Perez exaggerated Iheir importance a little when he 

 said, with Dodel-Port, that '' a hundred thousand species of plants 

 would disappear from the face of the earth " if the bees ceased their 

 visits, but no one can doubt that such a contingency would cause a 

 very great disturbance in the vegetable kingdom. 



AVe have now arrived at two facts of the first importance : Flowers 

 are necessary to bees, and bees, on their side, are very useful or even 

 necessary to the fertilization of flowering plants. It now remains 

 to inquire whether this reciprocity of service has had as a consequence 

 any reciprocal adaptation in the two sorts of beings. 



It is generally admitted that all living things are subject to greater 

 or less variation, and that among these variations those Avhich are 

 advantageous to the species are fixed and further developed by hered- 

 ity and natural selection. So if flowers are necessary to the bees 

 and bees are useful or necessary in the fertilization of flowers, it is 



Pig. 5.— Side view of a boneyljeo. 



only natural to suppose that all the variations which favor food col- 

 lection in the former and reproduction in the latter will in the course 

 of time be acquired and am})litied. This is strictly reasonable: but 

 science will not rest content with a priori generalizations, and we 

 must discover how far this logical conclusion is justified by actual 

 facts. 



The adaption of the Mellifera to the collection of pollen and 

 nectar appears in various degrees through the whole series from the 

 Prosopis to the honeybee Apis mellifera. Tlie structure of the for- 

 mer does not difier essentially from that of the wasps, only if the 

 jaw appendages have been a little elongated and the hairs a little 

 more numerous we are at the beginning of the real evolution of the 

 Mellifera. In the h()neyl)ee, on the other hand, the evolution has 

 reached its highest i)oint and shows itself ])lainly in the ada])tations. 

 For tlie collection of pollen there ai-e the collecting hairs which cover 

 every part of the body and which, on tlie inside of the first tarsal joint 



