PREFERENCES OF BEES. 199 



his experiments, when the bee did not go to the next 

 honey, it was when he shook her oif too vigorously. I 

 should rather say that in his observations he did not 

 shake the bee off vigorously enough. The whole 

 objection, however, is open to the same remark as the 

 last. The bee would have a tendency, of course, like 

 any one else, to go to its goal by the nearest route. 

 Hence I never supposed that the figures exactly indi- 

 cate the degree of preference. The very fact, however, 

 that there would naturally be a tendency on the part 

 of the bees to save themselves labour by going to the 

 nearest honey, makes the contrast shown by my 

 observations all the more striking. 



I have never alleged that it was possible, in the case 

 of bees (or, for that matter, of men either), to get any 

 absolute and exact measure of preference for one color 

 over another. It would be easy to suggest many con- 

 siderations which would prevent this. For instance, 

 something would probably depend on the kind of 

 flower the bee had been in the habit of visiting. A 

 bee which had been sucking daisies might probably 

 behave very differently from one which had been 

 frequenting a blue flower. 



So far, however, as the conclusions which I ventured 

 to draw are concerned, I cannot see that they are in 

 any way invalidated by the objections w^iich Dr. 

 Miiller has urged, which, on the other hand, as it seems 

 to me, rather tend to strengthen my argument. 



I may perhaps be asked. If blue is the favourite 

 color of bees, and then pink, and if bees have had so 

 much to do with the origin of flowers, how is it there 

 are so few blue and pink ones ? 



The explanation I believe to be that all blue flowers 



