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HARD WICKE'S SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



are correct — is, that the principles of natural selection 

 are wrong, or not applicable in this particular way 5 

 or else that some unjustifiable assumption has been 

 made. Such being the position, it is clear that my 

 arguments cannot be met by the assumption of the 

 jsrinciples of natural selection ; they must be answered 

 by facts and first principles. My conclusions must 

 stand or fall on the intrinsic value of my facts and 

 reasoning. 



With regard to the red stigmas of Corylus, if it is 

 open to Muller to consider " that the red colour of 

 the stigmas is solely an effect of chemical processes 

 connected with the development of the female flowers 

 to maturity," I see no reason why anyone should not 

 give the same explanation (?) of the red of the poppy. 

 In both cases it is obviously the result of chemical 

 change, as far as the individual flower is concerned ; 

 the difference, according to Miiller's view, is that 

 while the red of Corylus has reached perfection with- 

 out the aid of insect selection, that of the poppy has 

 been evolved from a chance tendency to red in some 

 remote ancestor, by their selective action. The dis- 

 tinction drawn by Mr. Tansley between the two cases 

 is certainly a strange one. If the red of Corylus, 

 which appears with the same regularity generation 

 after generation as that of the poppy, is not heredi- 

 tary, what is heredity ? Surely the colour in each 

 case is brought about by "something which must 

 happen in the economy of the plant." But surely 

 also in each case the colour is hereditary, as the word 

 is usually understood. Certainly the red of Corylus 

 is "made permanent in the species," whether from 

 a functional reason or not. 



And it is to be noted, as I have already pointed 

 out, that Muller was only led to his opinion by the 

 fact that, in his experience, these female flowers of 

 Corylus were not visited by insects. Had he after- 

 wards found insects upon them, he would, doubtless, 

 lave concluded that they were, like other red flowers, 

 developed by insect selection. Possibly even yet it 

 may be found that they are insect-visited, and Cory- 

 lus removed from its present anomalous position. 

 And Muller himself attributed the colours of the 

 reproductive organs of certain plants to insect selec- 

 tion : "The colour of the perianth in Liliacese must 

 originally have been greenish, as it still is in Paris, 

 while the flowers at first made themselves conspicuous 

 to insects by the colour of the reproductive organs."* 



I am sorry to find that I have attributed to Mr. 

 Tansley a "stereotyping" theory of which he is 

 innocent, and thereby impeached the orthodoxy of 

 his Darwinism. For this mistake I apologise, and 

 at the same time thank him for thus more clearly 

 defining his position. As to whether the assertion 

 that " the ' bees ' were not bees at all " affects in any 

 way the argument against which it is brought, I shall 

 leave to the reader to judge. I could show, however, 



* "The Fertilization of Flowers," p. 559. 



from the writings of Muller and Grant Allen, that, 

 whatever the creatures were at the time when blue 

 flowers were not, they, at least, call them bees. But 

 it seems a case in which we may appositely ask, 

 ' ' What's in a name ? " 



Whatever they were, if their taste for blue was a 

 thing to be gained by experience of blue flowers, 

 they could not evolve a race of these by the exercise 

 thereof. 



The quotation given from Muller at this point 

 seems to indicate that he attributes a colour-sense 

 not gained by experience : " There arose others more 

 skilful and intelligent, with longer tongues and acuter 

 colour-sense ; and they gradually caused the pro- 

 duction of flowers with more varied colours, with 

 honey invisible to or beyond the reach of the less 

 intelligent short-tongued guests, etc." And how did 

 they cause the production of such modifications ? 

 Presumably by their acuter colour-sense and longer 

 tongues. And how did they acquire this acuter 

 colour-sense ? Certainly not from the more varied 

 colours, since it required the acuter sense to produce 

 these. 



But if it is urged that this colour-sense is not a 

 taste which would lead the insect to select flowers 

 with a tendency to the colour in question, it could be 

 of no avail in evolving the colour. 



After this quotation from Muller, we are further 

 told that the theory must rest on the supposition that 

 bees grew to recognise blue or red as an index of high 

 specialisation, for its taste for blue cannot have been 

 derived from any other source. And "thus the 

 statement under which, according to Mr. Bulman, 

 ' the whole theory collapses,' is absolutely necessary 

 for its support." In fact, Mr. Tansley has shown 

 that the statement is absolutely essential to the theory ; 

 I have shown that it is absolutely fatal to it. Thus 

 between us we have shown that the theory is im- 

 possible, whether the statement be true or not. It is 

 of course for readers to judge of the merits of our 

 respective arguments. 



I am glad to find passages quoted from Grant 

 Allen, showing that he upholds the theory that the 

 bees' taste for blue arises from the fact that blue is 

 the colour of the most advanced flowers. At the 

 same time, the quotation I gave in my last paper from 

 his "Monkswood" requires a bee whose taste for 

 blue was in existence at the time when the flowers 

 began to acquire a shade of blue ; this taste, then, 

 could not arise from the bee's experience that blue 

 flowers were best suited for it. I shall not attempt 

 to reconcile the apparent discrepancy, but I think I 

 can explain the reason of its existence. Grant Allen 

 has, in fact, two distinct types of bee, which he uses 

 on different occasions. 



If we suppose a race of bees launched suddenly 

 into a region of flowers where all the most highly 

 specialised and blue flowers are the largest honey- 

 bearers, we can easily believe that they will learn in 



