NOTES ON DIPTERA. 385 



concluding that blue flowers were formerly yellow or white ? 

 Let us consider some of the orders in which blue flowers occur 

 with others of different colours. 



For instance, in the Ranunculacese,* those with simple open 

 flowers, such as the buttercups and Thalidiiims, are generally 

 yellow or white. The blue Delphiniums and Aconites are highly 

 specialized, abnormal forms, and doubtless, therefore, of more 

 recent origin. Among the Caryophyllaceee the red and purplish 

 species are amongst those with highly specialized flowers, such as 

 Dianthus and Saponaria, while the simple open flowers, wliich 

 more nearly represent the ancestral type, such as Stellar la, 

 Cerastium, &c., are yellow and white. I cannot, therefore, 

 concur with Hildebrand in considering that red was the original 

 colour of the family." 



The author then proceeded further to discuss the subject of 

 the colours of flowers, and concluded by saying: — 



" However this may be, it seems to me that the preceding 

 experiments show conclusively that bees do prefer one colour to 

 another, and that blue is distinctly their favourite." 



Sir John Lubbock then made some most interesting remarks 

 upon the Identification of Companions in Ants, on the Recognition 

 of Relations, Peculiarities of Manner, Longevity, and on the genus 

 Anergates of the same group of insects, to which subjects we shall 

 on a future occasion refer. 



NOTES ON DIPTERA. 

 By R. H. Meade, F.R.C.S. 



Dipterous insects, being mostly small in size and sombre in 

 colour, will never excite much interest in the imago or perfect 

 form ; but the naturalist who will take up the study of their 

 preliminary states, and endeavour to make out their life-history, 

 will be rewarded for his trouble b}^ the interest he will find in the 

 pursuit. Many species mine the leaves of plants, and the leaves 

 so affected may be easily known either by the blotches or blisters 

 wliich the larvse of the larger flies {Anthomyiiche and TrijiJctidce) 

 produce, as they separate the two layers of the leaf from each 

 other by eating the cellular succulent tissue between them, or by 

 the tortuous lines which show the course of the mines made by 



* I take ijiostof the following facts from Miiller's admirable work on Alpine Flowers. 



