THE FLOWER AND THE BEE 



Red waves of light, as is well known, excite attention and 

 are seen where other hues are passed by unnoticed; they are 

 the longest waves of the solar spectrum and, like long oceanic 

 waves, possess a great amount of energy. Are not red flags 

 constantly used for signals, and do not soldiers to-day avoid 

 wearing scarlet uniforms ? In moderation red is a warm, stim- 

 ulating color, and is frequently used in wearing apparel, in pic- 

 tures, and in the decoration of walls and ornaments; but in 

 excess it produces irritation and anger. It enrages the turkey 

 gobbler of the farmyard and excites the Texas steer to madness. 

 Physicians tell us that people living continually in bright-red 

 rooms are apt to be irritable and quarrelsome, but that when 

 the walls are painted a quieter hue, as pale blue or drab, these 

 nervous symptoms speedily disappear. 



Edible berries are more often red than any other color. 

 Bird-flowers are almost invariably fire-red or scarlet. In trop- 

 ical America, where there are more than five hundred species 

 of humming-birds, there are scores of scarlet bird-flowers, as 

 scarlet sages, fuchsias, and abutilons; while in Europe, as 

 Kerner has pointed out, where neither the humming-birds of 

 America nor the sun-birds of Africa nor the honeysuckers of 

 Australia are found, scarlet blossoms are noticeably absent. 

 It is difficult not to believe that anthophilous birds have learned 

 to associate bright-red colors with the presence of an ample 

 food-supply of nectar and small insects. 



It is, on the other hand, noteworthy that in the families and 

 genera which contain red butterfly-flowers blue is very rare 

 or wholly absent. There are no blue flowers in the pink family, 

 and in the orchis family out of 6,000 species there is only 1 

 blue form, Vanda coerulea, from India. Neither are all butter- 

 fly-flowers red, for in the genus Globularia there are 3 bright- 

 blue species which are adapted to butterflies, "the only in- 



136 



