276 THE WONDER OF LIFE 



The climax of bee evolution is exhibited by the hive-bees 

 {Apis mellifica), which we mention in the plural because 

 there are a good many varieties which again differ in their 

 degrees of fitness. The especial fitness of the hive-bee is 

 to be foimd in the perfection of the arrangements for col- 

 lecting and carrying the pollen and for sucking the nectar. 

 It is interesting to find that apiarists have for years prac- 

 tised some measure of selection with the hive-bee, just as 

 the breeder with his horses and cattle, paying special 

 attention to such points as the length of the tongue (which 

 they measure with a glossometer !) — ^the desire being to 

 control its length. 



The controversy really begins when we inquire into the 

 adaptiveness of the flowers to their visitors, for there is one 

 school of naturalists who insist in interpreting floral char- 

 acters as the outcome of a selective process in which insects 

 have played the leading role, while according to another the 

 selective r61e of insects is of quite subsidiary importance. 



The extreme position ia regard to the role of insects was 

 long since expressed by the late Lord Avebury, then Sir 

 John Lubbock. 



' Not only have the form and the colours, the bright 

 tints, the sweet odours and the nectar been gradually 

 developed by force of an unconscious selection exercised 

 by the insects, but even the arrangement of the colours, 

 the shape, the size and the position of the petals, the rela- 

 tive position of the stamens and pistil, are all determined 

 by the visits of the insects, and in such a way as to assure 

 the great object (fertilization) that these visits are intended 

 to effect.' 



The famous French botanist, Gaston Bonnier, has been 

 foremost in maintaining that the plant secretes nectar for 



