420 



INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



strait to admit them, they then, without further attempts 

 in the ordinary way, pierced the bottoms of all the flowers 

 which they wished to rifle of their sweets, M. Aubert du 

 Petit-Thouars observed that humble-bees and the carpenter- 

 bee (Xylocopa x violacea) gained access in a similar manner to 

 the nectar of Antirrhinum linaria and majus and Mirabilis 

 jalappa, as do the common bees of the Isle of France to 

 that of Canna Indica 2 ; and I have myself more than once 

 noticed holes at the base of the long nectaries of Aquilegia 

 vulgaris, which I attribute to the same agency. 3 



A similar instance of knowledge gained by experience in 

 the hive-bee is related by Mr. Wailes. He observed that all 

 the bees, on their first visit to the blossoms of a passion-flower 

 (Passiflora ccerulea) on the wall of his house, were for a con- 

 siderable time puzzled by the numerous overwrapping rays of 

 the nectary, and only after many trials, sometimes lasting 

 two or three minutes, succeeded in finding the shortest way 

 to the honey at the bottom of the calyx ; but experience 

 having taught them this knowledge, they afterwards con- 

 stantly proceeded at once to the most direct mode of obtaining 

 the honey ; so that he could always distinguish bees that had 

 been old visiters of the flowers from new ones, the last being 



» Apis * *. d. 2. K. 2 Nouveau Bulletin des Sciences, i. 45. 



3 See an interesting article by Mr. C. Darwin in the Gardeners Chronicle, 1841, 

 p. 550., on the variations in the mode in which humble-bees pierce, as above de- 

 scribed, the long-tubed corollas of different labiated plants. In Stachys coccinea, 

 Mirabilis jalappa, and Salvia coccinea, each corolla had a hole on its upper side near 

 the base ; whereas in Salvia Grahami, which has a more elongated calyx, this 

 part also was invariably pierced ; and in Penstemon argatus the rather broader 

 corolla had always two holes, in order to give the bees more ready access to the 

 nectar on both sides of the germen. All these holes are on the upper side of the 

 base of the corolla ; but in the common Antirrhinum they are on the under side, 

 so as to be directly in front of the nectary. Town-educated humble-bees 

 Mr. Darwin found always draw off the nectar from these last-named flowers 

 growing in the London Zoological Gardens through these artificial orifices ; 

 while from two years' observation he is persuaded that their rustic brethren are 

 less clever, and invariably gain access to the nectar of snap-dragons growing in the 

 country by forcing open the elastic lower lip and creeping into the flower. Possibly 

 different species or sexes of humble-bees may be here concerned ; but one in- 

 stance, in which the same individual bee cut holes in the base of some flowers of 

 Rhododendron azaleoides and entered the mouth of others, seems as strong a proof 

 of reason as can well be imagined, as the proceedings of the little animal were 

 evidently varied according to the varying necessity of the case ; and if, as 

 Mr. Darwin thinks he has observed, the hive-bees frequenting these flowers by 

 degrees came to discover and avail themselves of the orifices made by the humble- 

 bees, this fact, as he justly remarks, offers a very striking proof of acquired 

 knowledge in insects. 



