COLOUR OF FLOWERS—ITS INFLUENCE ON BEE-LIFE. 936 
take all the wines that favoured State can produce, the possibly 
still more naturally endowed wine areas of Australia will have to 
look to English and European markets, which, and more especially 
the latter, may be relied on to take very large quantities of wines, 
provided they are prepared with scrupulous care and foresight. 
The requirements of both these markets are fixed, so that all that 
is necessary is to work up to them. In particular, the Bordeaux 
market desires a superior type of wine to blend with the inferior 
wines of Europe, and in the production of this type New South 
Wales possesses every natural advantage, whilst science, improved 
appliances, cheap land, and cheap freights lend their assistance to 
neutralise the disadvantages of a long voyage and more expensive 
abour. 
No. 12.—THE COLOUR OF FLOWERS AND ITS 
INFLUENCE ON BEE-LIFE. 
By ALBERT GALE. 
(Read, Tuesday, 11 January, 1898.) 
Tue subject that I have chosen for this paper may not at first sight 
appear to be one so fraught with interest as those you have alre ady 
listened to. That it is in any way directly associated with agri- 
culture may appear somewhat doubtful. ‘Indeed, the title itself 
is not a very happy one. The matter that I intend to weave into 
it, both in warp and woof, may not produce a fabric wholly con- 
sistent with the colow? of flowers and its influence on bee-life. 
I am dealing somewhat with the essential organs of certain 
plants, and the agents employed in their reproduction ; and I think 
as I proceed I shall be able to show that bee-life and blossoms are 
so closely associated the one with the other that to injuriously 
interfere with either will at the same time militate against both. 
Animal life—our lives—cannot exist without the vegetable king- 
dom, but some members of the latter can live and propagate 
themselves without the former; whilst there are other forms of 
vegetable life which would cease to exist if all animal organisms 
were excluded from them—indeed, some forms of insect life are 
an absolute necessity in the reproduction of plants. I know that 
amongst phanerogamic plants there are those that are anemophilous 
and others that are entomophalous. The former can continue to 
multiply without insect aid, but with the latter insects are an 
imperative necessity. Nearly all insects more or less aid in the 
