No. -342] 



COLOR SENSE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



from every available source. It is, then, freely admit ted 

 that bees will collect sweet liquids, after they have once 

 been found, from green or dull-colored surfaces; but 

 this is very far from proving that bright coloring is not 

 an advantage to flowers, and it is astonishing that such a 

 claim based on the above facts should ever have been 

 made. 



Knnth in reviewing the observations of Plateau on 

 greenish and brownish flowers very properly raises the 

 objection that "Plateau has not compared the t'reijuency 

 of insect visits to inconspicuous and conspicuous (lowers 

 of the same size, and it is only experiments of this kind 

 which can help to settle the point at issue." 18 This omis- 

 sion is fatal to Plateau's argument, and it is diflicult to 

 understand why control experiments were not employed. 

 It is the object of the present paper to present the results 

 of a long series of experiments, in which honey-bees 

 under similar conditions were given the choice between a 

 conspicuous and an inconspicuous object. 



As a preliminary inquiry it is of interest to determine 

 whether plants with dioecious inflorescence afford any 

 assistance in deciding this question. As is generally 

 known, the staminate flowers of entomophilous and some- 

 times of anemophilous diclinic species are more con- 

 spicuous than the pistillate. This is well shown by the 

 genus Salix. Willow branches bearing staminate aments 

 are offered for sale in New England cities in early spring, 

 and are used for decorative purposes in the churches of 

 England on Palm Sunday. Careful observation and col- 

 lection of the visitors of Salix discolor (the glaucous or 

 pussy willow), the earliest species of Salix to bloom in 

 this locality, shows that the number of insects attracted 

 by the staminate aments is much greater than by the 

 pistillate. The difference is, indeed, so marked as to be 

 readily apparent to any one who will keep an individual 

 shrub of each form under observation for a tew hours. 



