6 BRITISH FLOWERING PLANTS chap. 



hand, owe their scent and honey, their form and colour, 

 to the agency of insects. Thus the lines and bands by 

 which so many flowers are ornamented have reference 

 to the position of the honey ; and it may be observed 

 that these honey -guides are absent in night flowers, 

 where they, of course, would not show, and would there- 

 fore be useless, as, for instance, in Lychnis vespertina or 

 Silene nutans. Night flowers, moreover, are generally 

 pale ; for instance, Lychnis vespertina is white, while 

 Lychnis diurna, which flowers by day, is red/ 



It must be borne in mind that, as a rule, each work- 

 ing bee keeps during each journey to a single species 

 of plant. It is interesting that this fact was mentioned 

 by Aristotle. It has been questioned, probably because 

 male bees have been watched, and they are not so con- 

 stant as the females. For them it is not so important. 

 Male bees take no share in the provision of food, and 

 their time is of no value. Hence neither of the two 

 reasons which influence female bees apply to them. One 

 advantage to the bees is the economy of time resulting 

 from doing the same thing over and over again ; but 

 another, no doubt, is that- the pollen of difi"erent species 

 is kept separate and not mixed together. 



Working bees waste no time, and fly quickly. 

 Darwin timed humble bees at 10 miles an hour, and 

 I believe hive bees are considerably more rapid. I have 

 often watched them, and seen them visit some twenty 

 flowers in a minute ; and though one would suppose 

 that when flowers are numerous many must be missed, 

 this does not appear to be the case. Darwin, for in- 

 stance, near Bournemouth, in the course of a long 

 walk examined several hundred flowers of Heath [Erica 

 Tetralix), and every one had been visited. Nay, each 

 flower is visited several times a day. In the case of 

 Dictamnus Fraxinella he found the visits amounted 

 to thirty in a day. Of course, however, in the case 

 of many species the visits are comparatively few and 

 far between. 



' Avehnry (Lubbock), Flowers, Fruits, and Leaves. 



