PART IY. | GENERAL RETROSPECT. 571 
their reach. For instance, butterflies may be seen on the honey- 
less flowers of Hypericum perforatum, applying their tongues 
to the base of the flower without either finding honey or piercing 
succulent tissue; the hive-bee tries in vain to reach the honey 
of Iris Pseudacorus, and Rhingia to reach the honey of Dianthus 
deltoides and Lamium maculatum. Bombus terrestris tries vainly 
to reach the honey of Aquwilegia vulgaris, Primula elatior, Vicia 
Faba, ete., in the legitimate way, but finally bites a hole and steals 
the honey; various small insects (Meligethes, Andrena parvula, 
Spilogaster semicinerea) visit the flowers of Cypripedium, but find 
no food and, being unable to escape, are starved to death. I 
think I have given enough similar instances in foregoing pages 
to prove beyond doubt that anthophilous insects are not guided 
by hereditary instinct to particular flowers. 
Another class of facts shows clearly that those insects whose 
bodily organisation is least adapted for a floral diet, are also least 
ingenious and skilful in seeking and obtaining their food; so that 
anthophilous insects intelligence seems to advance pari passu 
with structural adaptation. This statement is fully proved by the 
insect lists given in the sequel. The following examples may serve 
to illustrate the point at present. Coccinella septempunctata, which 
is not adapted at all for a floral diet, behaves so awkwardly on 
flowers of Lrodiwm cicutarium that it generally loses its hold and 
often falls to the ground ; and many attempts fail to make it more 
skilful. Sarcophaga carnaria seeks honey diligently on flowers of 
Polygonum Bistorta, but it usually misses its aim in trying to in- 
sert its proboscis into the flowers; Andrena albicans at first is 
equally awkward, but gradually becomes more skilful and learns 
to insert its proboscis with greater accuracy. The hive-bee never 
fails in any case to insert its proboscis accurately. 
_ Since we have found that structural adaptation and intelligence 
advance together, it is easy to understand the fact that short- 
lipped insects, little or not at all specialised for a floral diet, can 
usually only find fully exposed honey, such as Listera, Parnassia, 
Cornus, and Umbelliferze afford; honey still easily accessible but 
not directly visible to them is passed by. It is also quite in- 
telligible that the more specialised visitors visit those flowers most 
diligently which supply them with most booty; for instance, bees 
furnished with abdominal collecting-brushes visit chiefly flowers 
fitted to apply pollen to their ventral surfaces ; long-tongued bees 
visit chiefly flowers with deep honey-receptacles, whose honey is 
inaccessible to the great mass of insects; and hawk-moths, which 
