ISOLATION 189 



creatures that would stay and gorge in them, without any service 

 done in return, while they are fairly easy of access to bees. 

 Nevertheless these contrivances do not all work perfectly, and 

 bees will often bite through the top of the corolla of the 

 Comfrey (Symphytum officinale), of the common red heath (Erica 

 cinerea), of the pink crossleaved heath (E. tetralix), thus making 

 a short cut to the honey without putting any pollen on the 

 pistils. Some, however, enter at the mouth of the bell, and do 

 the required work. When she visits Columbines (genus Aquilegia), 

 at least those of the cultivated varieties, the bee always, as far as 

 I have observed, bites and takes without giving a quid pro quo: 

 no fertilisation takes place. In some columbines so long a spur 

 has been developed that the bee cannot rest upon it, and so leaves 

 it alone as being inaccessible. With wild flowers there is recipro- 

 city between insect and plant, with occasional larceny on the part 

 of the insect. 



In order to show that bees are attracted by bright colours Sir Colour 

 John Lubbock made an experiment which will convince most sense 

 of those who are as yet unconvinced. He took a hive bee to 

 his room and accustomed it to find honey in a certain place. He 

 then let it go. During its absence he put two drops of honey 

 on microscope slides each at a distance of one foot from the spot 

 where the honey originally was and in opposite directions from 

 it ; by one drop was placed a flower-head of Eryngium amethystinum, 

 which is not conspicuous ; by the other were the blue bracts of 

 the same flower which were no less than four inches across. 

 The bee returned ninety-three times, sixty times to the honey 

 near the bracts, thirty-three times to that near the obscure flower- 

 head. In order to make the experiment more conclusive the 

 bracts and the flower-head were transposed after each visit paid 

 by the bee. 1 



Sir John Lubbock rightly characterises some experiments made 

 by Professor Plateau as worth little. Professor Plateau covered 

 the petals of some single dahlias (which for us and, very possibly, 

 for bees have no scent) with paper disks of various colours. The 

 bees came as before. Naturally ; for when a bee has found 



1 See Journal of the Linnasan Society, April i. 1898. 



