INTERRELATIONS OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS 37 



adapted to hold pollen. In this way pollen is collected by the bee 

 and taken to the hive to be used as food. But while gathering 

 pollen for itself, the dust is caught on the hairs and other pro- 



Bumblebees. , queen; b, worker; c, drone. 



jections on the body or legs and is thus carried from flower to 

 flower. The value of this to a flower we will see later. 



Field Work. Is Color or Odor in a Flower an Attraction to an Insect? 



Sir John Lubbock tried an experiment which it would pay a number of 

 careful pupils to repeat. He placed a few drops of honey on glass slips 

 and placed them over papers of various colors. In this way he found that 

 the honeybee, for example, could evidently distinguish different colors. 

 Bees seemed to prefer blue to any other color. Flowers of a yellow or 

 flesh color were preferred by flies. It would be of considerable interest 

 for some student to work out this problem with our native bees and with 

 other insects by using paper flowers and honey or sirup. Test the keen 

 ness of sight in insects by placing a white object (a white golf ball will do) 

 in the grass and see how many insects will alight on it. Try to work out 

 some method by which you can decide whether a given insect is attracted 

 to a flower by odor alone. 



The Sight of the Bumblebee. The large eyes located on the 

 sides of the head are made up of a large number of little units, 

 each of which is considered to be a very simple eye. The large 

 eyes are therefore called the compound eyes. All insects are pro 

 vided with compound eyes, with simple eyes, or in most cases 

 with both. The simple eyes of the bee may be found by a careful 

 observer between and above the compound eyes. 



