BEES AND FLOWERS. 481 



rliariiu's. 'I'hc nectar iicNcr contains more tlian a small |)ai-t of the 

 !-ngar secreted by the nectaries. 



When the insects do not collect the nectar soon after its emission 

 it is reabsorbed by the plant and serves to nourish the tissues and to 

 develop the or«2;ans, especially those for the formation of seeds. In a 

 word, it is for its own use, and not to attract bees for fertilization, 

 that the phint secrete^s nectar. It thereby accumulates reserves at the 

 points nearest to the phice of utilization. Ordinarily this is in the 

 flower, where it best can serve the development of the seeds, but 

 sometimes it is in other parts of the body, where it is more needed. 



It is therefore impossible to consider nectar and the nectaries en- 

 tirely as the products of an adaptation which would have as its result 

 the attraction of insects to its flowers. Sir John Lubbock seems to 

 me wrong on this point. 



I am not so certain about the odor. Whether it come from petals 

 or nectar, no one can doubt that it attracts the keen-sensed l)ees. 

 Their olfactory sensibility is demonstrated by the ability they show 

 in discovering hone}' in the closest places. In the small house in 

 which is kept the honey taken from the hives, at the Laboratory of 

 Vegetable Biology, I saw hundreds of bees. The building was per- 

 fectly tight and all the chinks in the Avindows stopped up, and in 

 spite of assiduous search it was impossible to discover the fissure 

 which gave entrance to the swarm. As an additional bit of evi- 

 dence, M. Perez very justly observes that bees frequenting the willow 

 catkins in the early spring always come thither from the side toward 

 which the wind blows the fragrance. 



I do not forget that Sir John Lubbock has seen bees indifferent to 

 a bit of honey placed but a short distance from their hive, but believe 

 that Perez exactly interprets this experience when he says that the 

 collector bee at the moment when it goes out to work is " exclu- 

 sivel}^ absorbed by the idea of its work," and that it is " iiKlifferent to 

 all which is not the object of its activity of the moment." Nor do I 

 ignore the fact that Gaston Bonier finds an objection to the theory of 

 attraction by perfumes in the bee's indilference to the delicate fra- 

 grance of the Melittis melisso'pliyllmn. But I also know that all 

 flowers are not equally attractive and that the Melittis is a plant 

 for which the bees show little taste. 



We will therefore admit with a great majority of the naturalists 

 that the odor of flowers is an element of attraction for insects. As 

 a conse(i[uence is it necessary to believe with Darwin and Sir John 

 Lubbock that these perfumes are the product of an adaptation of the 

 flowers to the insect? It is rather bold to commit oneself to the 

 affirmative when so many plants are strongly scented in places other 

 SM 1VKJ4 31 



