HUMBLE-BEES AND FOXGLOVES. 335 



suppose the contrary, since the two species that search them, 

 most constantly, in the regular manner, are much more nume- 

 rous, where they abound, than those whose habits have been 

 modified. If no conclusion can be drawn from this circum- 

 stance, yet I am unable to see what gain can accrue, from such 

 a change, to the species, though it may mean less trouble to the 

 individual. But nations that have become effete on this principle 

 have not disappeared at once, and there should be ample time 

 to observe the deleterious variations in the habits of a species, 

 before these have cost it its life. 



The above observations were made by me from August 18th 

 to 26th, and were confined to a particular patch of foxgloves in 

 that part of the Black Forest where I was staying. From 

 some earlier ones made in other and much smaller patches, it 

 has occurred to me that the flower- searching habits of the same 

 species of Bombus may differ locally, by which I mean in places 

 only a short distance apart. As the worker bees do not go a very 

 great way from the nest, and as the fertilized queen probably 

 does not do so either, this is not, in itself, less improbable than 

 that different dialects of a language — e. g. Norwegian — should 

 have grown up in valleys quite near to, but cut off, by high 

 intervening mountains, from, one another. In neither case can 

 the inhabitants of neighbouring districts intermix, which is the 

 condition above all requisite for divergence both of habit and 

 speech. Since, however, my previous observations were made, 

 casually, when my mind was occupied with another subject, 

 and were not noted down at the time, I only mention this 

 as a matter of possibility, which it might be worth while to 

 investigate. 



I do not recall having ever, in England, seen a Humble-Bee 

 obtaining the nectar of the foxglove otherwise than by entering 

 the flower — but foxgloves are not common in England. As 

 Darwin, however, mentions bees being sometimes in such a 

 hurry to rifle flowers as to bite holes through their corollas, I 

 will here once more say that, to the best of my observation and 

 belief, these bees of the Schwarzwald never did so whilst search- 

 ing the foxglove beds. Not only did they leave such flowers as 

 were not already perforated, but such perforations as they 

 utilized, showed, by their discoloured edges, that they had not 



