104 
NATURE NOTES 
would do so in the most friendly manner, though I hope the 
tone of my remarks would have been equally devoid of personal 
feeling if we had not to lament the fatal accident which has 
removed from our midst a real lover of Nature. For I have 
gathered, both from his publications and also from his private 
letters, that what Mr. Bell had most at heart was to arrive at 
the real explanation of the occurrence of heterostyly in the 
primrose and its allies, and the sole object of his publications 
was to rectify what he believed to be an error of method and of 
judgment on the part of Darwin. 
The first criticism of Mr. Bell’s to which I should like to 
refer is the exception he takes to my remark, made, I admit, on 
general grounds, that the primrose is adapted to the visits of 
insects. I still believe we can hardly go wrong, when we see 
flowers which strike the eye at a distance by a bright and 
conspicuous corolla, to infer in our climate, where we have no 
humming-birds, that the purpose of these bright flowers is to 
attract insects in search of l)oney. It is indeed difficult to 
imagine what other purpose they might serve. The same may 
be said of the scent, however delicate, of the primrose. The 
nectar, too, which they secrete, and Mr. Bell admits (p. 64 ) that 
they produce nectar, cannot be of any use to the flower except 
to attract insect visitors. The statement, then, that the flower 
is adapted to the visits of insects is, I think, borne out by the 
appearance and structure of the flower. I did not, of course, 
intend to convey the idea that it was adapted to the visits of all 
insects, or even to a large number of them. If, as Mr. Bell 
rightly shows, the vast majority of insects cannot obtain the 
nectar on account of the length of the corolla-tube, that does not 
make the statement incorrect, for the honeysuckle, with a still 
deeper tube-like corolla, must also be considered adapted to the 
visits of insects, though only a few moths will be able to gratify 
their appetites with the honey which this flower secretes. 
Many other instances might be cited of flowers which are 
adapted to the visits of a restricted number of insects, occasion- 
ally even to a single species. 
With regard to the insects which I did observe visiting prim- 
rose flowers, I am greatly indebted to Mr. Bell for drawing my 
attention to what was obviously a wrong identification of one 
of their number. The Anthophora which 1 observed was, as Mr. 
Bell rightly surmised, Anthophora pilipcs, and not A. fiircata. 
Much as 1 regret this wrong identification, it does not, how- 
ever, invalidate my observations nor the conclusions I drew from 
them. Leaving out of consideration the very numerous Andrcua, 
which from careful observation 1 feel sure did cross-pollinate the 
long-styled forms, let us consider the two insects which Mr. Bell 
admitted could obtain the honey of the primrose and might there- 
fore be attracted to them. In the first place, Mr. Bell considered 
that they would not be able to get any pollen dusted on to their 
heads, as the anthers burst inwardly. But a little experimenting 
