THE CONSTANCY Or INSECTS IN THEIR VISITS TO FLOWERS. 175 



On tlie Constancy of Insects in their Yisits to Flowers. 



By AlfredW. Bennett, M.A., B.Sc, F.L.S. 



[Eead March 1, 1883.] 



A YERT large amount of attention has been paid during recent 

 years to the habits of insects in visiting flowers with reference to 

 the fertilization of the latter. One point, evidently of import- 

 ance, seems to require further elucidation, viz. the extent to 

 which, on the same visit, insects confine their visits to the same 

 plant-species. I know of no modern recorded observations which 

 either confirm or refute the statement made by Aristotle : — 

 " During each flight the Bee does not settle upon flowers of dif- 

 ferent kinds, but flies, as it were, from violet to violet, and touches 

 no other species till it returns to the hive "*. 



In my own observations, which require to be supplemented 

 by other independent ones, I chose in all cases as points of 

 observation spots where a considerable number of different 

 flowers grew in profusion and intermixed, so that the insects 

 had abundant opportunity of changing their diet if so disposed. 

 In recording the number of flowers of the same kind visited by 

 an insect in the same flight, I always mean flowers at such a 

 distance from one another that the insect has had to use its wings 

 in getting to each. Wherever the flowers grew in so close an 

 inflorescence that it could crawl from one flower to another with- 

 out using its wings, as in the Compositae, Dipsacacese, and Um- 

 beliiferse, the clovers, and many Labiatse, such an inflorescence 

 is here treated as a single flower. I have thought it best to record 

 briefly every observation made on the subject, in order that 

 there may be no suspicion of their having'been chosen for a 

 special object. 



Obs. 1. NearEoss, Herefordshire, Aug. 3rd, 1880. Mowers 

 growing close together : — Mubus fruticostis, Senecio Jacobcea, 

 Hypericum perforatum, H. montanum, JErythrcea Gentaurium^ 

 Trifolium procumhens, Calamintha Clinopoclium, Malva onoschata, 

 Arctium Lappa, Teucrium Scorodonia, Torilis Anthriscus. The 

 Meadow-brown Butterfly (Hipparchia Janira) visited the bramble 

 alone 7 times in succession. 



* Aristotle, ' History of Animals,' Eook ix. cap. 27, sect. 7 (Eohn's transla- 

 tiou). 



LIWN. JOUEN. — ZOOLOaV, VOL, XVII 14 



