NOTES ON THE TASTES OF BEES IN COLOUR. 143 
Geum urbanum, which has swarms of miscellaneous insects. 
When a Ranunculaceous plant becomes highly specialised, like 
Aconite and Larkspur, then its colour becomes purple or blue and 
its visitors become select. 
It is quite otherwise with orders like Lezuminosz, which are 
from the beginning set aside for intelligent insect visitors. Very 
few others would have sense enough to know that there is anything 
worth getting in them. One must also remember that negative 
evidence is of no value in this enquiry. The Mignonette, Willow 
catkins, Hazel, and Lime are all splendid bee or bumble bee 
flowers. That does not show that the bees are indifferent to the 
colour. 
Both Mignonette and Lime have abundant honey and very 
strong scent, and the bee would be attracted to them in spite of 
the inconspicuous colour. The Willow and Hazel, though not 
red and blue, are conspicuous at a distance, and what else could a 
thirsty bee find when they are in bloom? 
But most botanists now believe that both flower-haunting 
insects and flowers have specialised together. | As some original 
open buttercup flower became gradually modified and turned 
through yellow and red into a rich purple aconite, so its visitors, 
from being scarcely specialised low grade Hymenoptera, gradu- 
ally changed into the highly organised, intelligent, and industrious 
Bumble bees and Hive bees. 
I think there can be little doubt that in most natural orders, 
these species, which are most decidedly and exclusively bee- 
flowers are, if they differ from the rest, either rich red, purple, or 
blue. This would confirm the general theory that these colours 
are of a higher grade, that they have been selected and gradually 
fixed by heredity. I think most authors admit that the original 
flower colour was green, yellow, or white. 
If one accepts Muller’s data as well as Willis and Burkill’s, 
and my own, then the whole theory hangs together and is under- 
standable. 
The bees, as we think, prefer or find more conspicuous reds 
and blues, and by their selecting agency, these colours have in a 
few cases been fixed in the special Bee-flowers. 
I have always felt that this question should be again taken 
up and a new book written about it. I wish some one present 
would do this, 
