106 NATURAL SCIENCE [augue 
other, it requires a discriminating taste and constancy on the part 
of the bee. It involves, moreover, the assumption, that while cer- 
tain simple and regular flowers visited by insects have remained 
simple, others originally equally regular and simple have had im- 
pressed on them all sorts of irregular and complex forms by the 
same insects visiting them in the same way and for the same pur- 
pose. If the direct action of the insect in visiting one simple and 
regular flower is to elongate one petal and form a hood of another, 
how has it been possible for it to visit a host of others for countless 
generations without producing any such effect, or altering the 
simple regularity of their form? It is not probable, then, that 
Professor Henslow’s amendment will be adopted, at least in these 
days of scientific doubt as to the transmission of acquired characters. 
Other insects, it is generally admitted, are even less discriminat- 
ing, and more erratic, in their visits to flowers than bees. Hence, 
if bees cannot be accepted as evolvers of new species of flowers by 
their selective action, the whole theory of insect ‘selection fails. 
It remains a fact that no alternative explanation of the origin of 
the colour, scent, and form of flowers on Darwinian principles has 
yet been brought forward. In this fact, indeed, we have the only 
—if insufficient—reason why the theory has been so long retained. 
G. W. BULMAN. 
REFERENCES 
1. Darwin, C.—‘‘ Origin of Species.” London, 1859. 
2. Lubbock, Sir John.—‘‘ British Wild Flowers in relation to Insects.’ London, 
1875. 
3. Darwin, C.—‘‘Cross- and Self-fertilisation of Plants.” London, 1876. 
4. Bennett, A. W.—‘‘ Constancy of Insects in their visits to Flowers.” Journ. Linn. 
Soc. Zool., vol. xvii., p. 175. 1883. 
5. Christy, R. M.—‘‘ On Methodic Habits of Insects when visiting Flowers.”  Jbid., 
p. 186. 
6. Allen, Grant.—‘‘ The Colours of Flowers.” London, 1882. 
7. Miller, Hermann.—‘“‘ The Fertilisation of Flowers” [English translation]. London, 
1883. 
8. Henslow, Rev. George.—‘“‘ Floral Structures.” London, 1888. 
9. Bulman, G. W.—‘‘On the Supposed Selective Action of Bees on Flowers,” 
Zoologist [3], vol. xiv., p. 422. 1890. 
10. .—‘* The Constancy of the Bee.” Science Gossip, 1892. 
