HUMBLE-BEES AND FOXGLOVES. 333 



strongly made, and somewhat sickle-shaped. Thus, then, sup- 

 posing these beetles to be the makers of the holes in question, 

 we have, at least, three species of Humble-Bee taking ad- 

 vantage of their handiwork to insert their proboscis through 

 the basal part of the corolla of the foxglove, from without, 

 instead of entering it, which it does not appear to be their habit 

 to do. 



Assuming that the ancestors of those bees that do not now 

 enter the foxglove flowers, in order to rifle them, were in the 

 habit of doing so, what, if any, has been the gain to the species, 

 through which this change of habit has been brought about ? 

 Saving of time is the only one that I can imagine, and certainly 

 a bee that descends directly on those parts of the flower where 

 the juices which she covets reside, can sooner obtain them than 

 one who comes down farther off, by the length of the long tunnel, 

 formed by the corolla, up which she has first to climb. But, on 

 the other hand, a bee which flies from one such tunnel to another, 

 looking for holes in them, through which it can thrust its pro- 

 boscis, which holes it does not always find, would seem to be 

 losing time ; yet this is what I have seen many bees doing. 

 Here it would depend on how numerous such holes were, and, in 

 regard to this, they must have been fairly numerous, one would 

 think, for such a habit to have arisen at all. Still, though, here 

 and there, almost every foxglove seemed perforated, in this way, 

 over any large area, they formed, I believe, but a small minority. 

 Possibly the bee may be aided here by its eyesight, yet it 

 was common for them to settle on the necks of unperforated 

 tubes, from which they had to fly, bootless, away. These bees 

 certainly lost time, but they might, perhaps, more than make 

 up for this by a succession of successful alightments, of which I 

 also saw many instances. 



Bees that search the foxgloves in this way, rifle, also, those 

 flowers which have lost their corollas, yet I have seen individuals 

 going so continuously from tube to tube, to probe them from 

 without, that one would not have supposed that they did anything 

 else, and this was particularly the case with one species, the 

 small black Humble-Bee, with a yellow-tipped abdomen — B. mort- 

 nucatus namely — which I have mentioned. I am not, indeed, 

 quite sure that the latter does not feed exclusively in this manner 



