282 AUSTRALIAN BEE, LORE AND BEE CULTURE. 



blossoms; and these two qualities of flowers— colour and perfume 

 — remain dominant as attractive agents to insects. It is further 

 said that the development of colour and perfume has had the effect 

 of educating the visual and olfactory nerves of these insects (bees) 

 in their search for flowers of particular colour or perfume to supply 

 them with their daily bread, whilst they pass over those of a less 

 gaudy colouring unheeding. Again, that the markings in the 

 throat or tube of other flowers act as finger-posts or guide-mark* 

 to point the bees in. the direction they should take to discover 

 where the nectar is situated that contains their food supply. (See 

 "The Story of the Plants," by Grant Allen; "Cross and Self- 

 fertilisation," by Darwin and others.) 



I am not going to attempt to prove that bees have not had 

 an influence on the plant world ; I have already acknowledge it 

 elsewhere. Neither am I going to try to disprove that they are 

 not cognisant of both colour and perfume; but that some colours 

 and some perfumes are more attractive to bees than certain others 

 does not in any way accord with my experience and years of ob- 

 servation. 



I know that highly intellectual scientists of undoubted veracity 

 have applied numerous tests, and given the results of their ob- 

 servations to the world, to prove that colours and perfumes are 

 the chief signs that act, like the Southern Cross to the mariner, 

 as indicators for bees to steer by in their peregrinations for the 

 discovery of both pollen and honey. It has been conceded again 

 and again that the tests and their results were unfailing proofs 

 of the correctness of these suppositions, i.e., that flowers of very 

 inconspicuous colours, markings, and shapes have developed into- 

 the bright and showy colours and forms they now possess that are 

 so attractive to the cultivated eye of lovers of the plant world. 



Sir John Lubbock, in "Bees, Ants, and Wasps," referring to. 

 the colour sense of bees, says: "The consideration of the causes, 

 which have led to the structure and colouring of flowers is one 

 of the most fascinating parts of natural history. Most botanists, 

 are now agreed that insects, and especially bees, have played a. 

 very important part in the development of flowers. While in 

 many plants, almost invariably with the inconspicuous blossoms, 

 the pollen is carried from flower to flower by the wind ; in cases, 

 of almost all large and brightly-coloured flowers this is effected 

 by the agency of insects. In such flowers, the colours, scents, and' 

 honey serve to attract insects, while the size and form are arranged. 



