575. 100 [ August 
581.16 
595.793 
III 
Bees and the Development of Flowers 
N the “ Origin of Species,” Darwin expressed the view that we 
owe the gay colours and varied forms of our flowers to the 
selective action of insects. ‘‘We may safely conclude,” he writes, 
“that if insects had never existed on the face of the earth, the 
vegetation would not have been decked with beautiful flowers, but 
would have produced only such poor flowers as are now borne by 
our firs, oaks, nut, and ash trees, by the grasses, by spinach, docks, 
and nettles.” 
This theory of the selective action of insects on flowers has 
been elaborated in great detail by Hermann Miiller in Germany, 
and by Sir John Lubbock and Mr Grant Allen in this country ; 
and almost every writer on Natural Selection has accepted this view 
as a part of the Darwinian scheme of evolution. In this case, as in 
many others, more recent observers, assuming that the foundations 
are secure, have spent their time in elaborating structural details in 
the hypothetical edifice. But when we lay the ingenious conception 
along the straight rule of facts in nature, the measures do not 
correspond. In other words, the foundation, the habits of insects 
with regard to flowers, does not support the hypothetical super- 
structure. 
Professor Henslow, again, has proposed an amendment, in which, 
although selection by insects is still the motive power, the modus 
operand? is different. 
Stated briefly the Darwinian theory is as follows :— 
Insects come to flowers for honey and pollen, and in so doing 
do not visit all indiscriminately, but select those which take their 
fancy, or suit them best. If they are seeking honey they will 
choose those flowers which afford the most, or in which it is most 
easily obtained; if they have a special liking for any colour, say 
blue, they will pick out the bluest flowers; if any special shape of 
flower affords them greater convenience for alighting, they will visit 
these rather than others. Now in any species of flower all these 
things—amount and position of honey, colour, and shape—vary in 
different individuals. If, then, insects possessed the requisite dis- 
crimination, we might suppose them selecting, generation after 
generation, those flowers in which these desirable points were most 
highly developed. The flowers thus visited would obtain the 
