1 24 On Flowers and Insects. 



plants to flower early in the spring before the leaves 

 are out, because the latter would catch much of the 

 pollen, and thus interfere with its access to the 

 stigma. Again, in these plants the pollen is less 

 adherent, so that it can easily be blown away by 

 the wind, which would be a disadvantage in most 

 plants which are fertilised by insects. 



Such flowers generally have the stigma more or 

 less branched or hairy, which evidently must tend 

 to increase their chances of catching the pollen. 



7. The evidence derivable from the relations of 

 bees and flowers is probably sufficient to satisfy 

 most minds that bees are capable of distinguishing 

 colours, but the fact had not been proved by any 

 conclusive experiments. I therefore tried the fol- 

 lowing. If you bring a bee to some honey, she 

 feeds quietly, goes back to the hive, stores away 

 her honey, and returns with or without companions 

 for another supply. Each visit occupies about six 

 minutes, so that there are about 10 in an hour, 

 and about 100 in a day. I may add that in this 

 respect the habits of wasps are very similar, and 

 that they appear to be quite as industrious as bees. 

 Perhaps I may give the record of a morning's work 

 of one of my wasps.* She came to the honey at a 

 few minutes after 4 in the morning, and to show 

 how regularly she worked I may give the following 

 extract from my note-book, recording her visits 

 from 6.30 till 12. Thus she 



* In her case the intervals were rather longer than usual. 



