575. 240 
581.16 
595.793 
I] 
Bees and the Development of Flowers 
ARWIN and Dr Russel Wallace maintain that the bright 
colours of flowers are due to insects, and this view has, 
till recently, been accepted by most biologists.. But difficulties — 
become apparent as soon as the methods of insect workers are 
closely investigated. The result of such investigations has been 
that some naturalists (among them Mr G. W. Bulman, writing in 
Natural Science, Aug. 1897) have come to the conclusion that the 
colours of flowers have arisen quite independently of insects and that 
they have yet to be accounted for on Darwinian principles. 
A prwrt, if it be granted that the Darwinian hypothesis affords 
a satisfactory explanation of other phenomena of the animal and 
vegetable worlds, it seems unlikely that it should leave the colours 
of flowers unexplained. Moreover, flowers that are invariably fertil- 
ised without insect aid are almost all of them dull and inconspicuous. 
The young cones of the larch are an exception. In these the colour 
may, possibly, be looked upon as a by-product of the physiological 
activity of the plant. The more striking blossoins, elaborate in form 
and coloration, cannot possibly be mere by-products. 
The difficulty of explaining the colours of flowers, though by no 
means insuperable, is very real. Insects can never produce a new 
species unless during each journey from and back to the hive they 
keep to the same sort of flower. That they show a remarkable 
constancy is undeniable. When at work upon dandelions they will 
not wander to a neighbouring narcissus. In thus keeping to flowers 
of the same make, they are consulting their own interest: they can 
extract the honey with greater speed than if they wandered to 
flowers of a different build. Frequent practice at the same exercise 
produces great dexterity of limb and proboscis, and the work goes 
merrily on. There is but little of the tentative buzzing and recon- 
noitring that is unavoidable when a bee is investigating an unfamiliar 
flower. And thus it is to a bee’s own interest not to transfer 
pollen to a flower of a different genus or of different family. But 
she is often tempted to go from one variety to another, or to a 
closely allied species, and she does so without scruple. Thus it is 
just where her constancy might seem most needed that it breaks 
down. When new varieties are arising, the operation of bees comes 
