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Humble and hive bees [he writes] are good botanists, for they know that varieties may differ widely, in the color of their flowers, and yet belong to the same species. I have repeatedly seen humble bees flying straight from plant of the ordinary red Dictamnus Fraxinella to a white variety; and from one to another very differently colored variety of Delphinium Consolida and of Primula veris; from a dark purple to a bright yellow variety of Viola tricolor; and with species of Papaver, from one variety to another which differed much in color.

Then, again, what are the colors of the flowers on which we see the bees at work in our gardens and in the fields? Consider the case of green flowers, those which, according to the theory, have remained in that state from which the bee has redeemed the more brightly colored. These have presumably remained green because they have not been chosen by the bee. So, then, we should expect to find them neglected by the "azure-loving" insect. But there are a number of green or greenish flowers much frequented by bees. In April bees innumerable may be seen gathering nectar from the uncompromisingly green flowers of the sycamore. So devoted are they to these flowers that it has attracted the attention of the poet. Coleridge writes of

The sycamore oft musical with bees.

They will even haunt the sycamore while the azure bells of the wild hyacinth are hanging out their stores to tempt them. Bent on the study of the

paper walked one sunny April day through a wood carpeted with the lovely blue of these flowers. On them eight bees were seen at work. At the edge of the wood a sycamore tree had hung out its green tassels of blossoms, and it was "musical with bees." Hundreds of them were busy on the tree from the lowest branches to the highest twigs. Beneath the tree wild hyacinths, which Mr. Grant Allen says "have acquired a blue pigment to attract the eyes of azure-loving bees," spread their inviting carpet. On them was one bee.

So also the green flowers of the redcurrant in our gardens, and the insignificant greenish-white flowers of the rasp are often resorted to by the bee. And in the early spring the greenishyellow flowers of the willow are thronged with the busy insects. Virgil noted it long ago. In Dryden's translation he says:

Behold, yon neighboring fence of sallow trees

Is fraught with flowers, the flowers are fraught with bees.

And Mr. Grant Allen, the sponsor of the "azure-loving bee," says, "You hardly ever see a willow catkin in full bloom without a bevy of its attendant fertilizing insects."

And then there is the lime tree, "a summer home of murmurous wings," and yet its flowers differ little in color from the leaves. The green flower of the Virginian creeper and the greenishwhite of the holly are also frequented by bees, and in the autumn they may be seen seeking honey on the yellowishgreen flowers of the ivy. Finally, we note a plant growing in South Brazil mentioned by Fritz Müller, who collected Facts and Arguments for Darwin, of which the flowers are visited very abundantly all day long by the hive bee and other species, "although they

are scentless, greenish, quite inconspicuous, and to a great extent hidden by the foliage."

If the "kisses of the bee" can transform a green flower into a blue, why have these blossoms remained in their green obscurity?

Yellow flowers also appeal to the "azure-loving bee" in a strange way. The yellow charlock of our cornfields furnishes them with much nectar, and in some places affords the staple of the bee-keeper's harvest. "The broom's betrothed to the bee," says Hood, and indeed this flower, along with the whin and laburnum, are much visited. Of the two species of whin Mr. Grant Allen remarks that "between them they keep up an endless succession of blossoms for the bees." Various species of sunflower and barpalium also appear to be favorites, while in spring they come in crowds to the yellow crocus. And when Ariel wished to compare himself to a bee he thought of a yellow flower:

The bees and every insect of the air Make a perpetual murmur of delight.

He sees them, again, crowding to the white blossoms of the pear-tree:

I ask in vain Who planted on the slope this lofty group

Of ancient pear-trees, that with springtime burst

Into such breadth of bloom....

I ask in vain, Yet bless the unknown hand to which I Owe

This annual festival of bees.

Jean Ingelow recalls them among the cherry blossoms:

Wild cherry boughs above us spread The whitest shade was ever seen, And flicker, flicker, came and fled Sun spots between,

Bees murmured in the milk-white

bloom.

Keats sees them on the hawthorn:

A bush of May flowers with the bees about them.

And many people must have noticed the bees' devotion to the snowy flowers of the arabis so largely grown in our spring borders. Moore notes their eagerness for white flowers when he writes:

New legions soon Pour to the spot, like bees of Kauze

roon.

For the bees of Kauzeroon pour forth to cull the famous honey from the white flowers of the orange. And then the white clover!

Crowds of bees are giddy with clover.

The white clover is one of the chief sources of the beekeeper's harvest. And even when the bat wheels silently by:

Still the solitary humble bee Sings in the bean-flower

a white blossom spotted with black. Of the balm, again, Gerarde remarked, "They are delighted with this herb above others." And in color its flower is white or spotted with rose.

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We need not pursue the color question through the pinks, reds, purples, and other shades to which it is often difficult to give a name. It would, indeed, be difficult to name any color which bees do not appreciate as much as blue. Not that the bee despises blue flowers. There are blue flowers much visited, but these are neither more numerous in species nor frequently visited than green, yellow, or white. The bee, in fact, is indifferent to the color of the flower it visits. It will even on occasions do without the flowers altogether. Thus Mr. Bates tells us of certain forest-bees in South America which "are more frequently seen feeding on the sweet sap which exudes from the tree, or on the excrement of birds on leaves, than on flowers."

Whatever, then, may be the right interpretation of Lord Avebury's experiments, they do not prove that the bee selects blue flowers in nature. And if it does not, it cannot have been the agent in their evolution.

But if the bee is to play the part of florist-in-chief to the human race, and evolve for man the blue flower, another qualification is required. It must not only prefer blue flowers, and visit them rather than those of other colors, it must also be constant in its visits. That is to say, it must visit only one species of flower in a single journey. Otherwise it will carry pollen from one species to another, and so retard rather than promote the evolution of a new species. And Darwin has emphasized the need for guarding against crossing as regards the new

varieties of the florist. As a result of his long series of experiments on crossfertilization, he warns gardeners against allowing a cross even between flowers of the same variety. lf, then, the bee is to play the part of florist in nature, it must exhibit a high degree of constancy in its visits. And it has been gifted, by a number of writers who do not seem to have been very familiar with its habits, with a degree of constancy which has been considered by many sufficient for the purpose.

Darwin quotes Aristotle:

During each flight the bee does not settle upon flowers of different kinds, but flies, as it were, from violet to violet, and touches no other species till it returns to the hive.

But why should a great naturalist and keen observer drag out of its obscurity a somewhat vague assertion of an old Greek writer when he might have made direct observations for himself? And why should he bolster it up with an obviously unscientific statement from an obscure writer named Dobbs, to the following effect:

I have frequently followed a bee loading the farina, bee-bread, or crude wax on its legs through part of a great field in flower, and on whatever flower it first alighted and gathered the farina, it continued gathering from that kind of flower, and passed over many other species, though very numerous in the field, without alighting on or loading from them, though the flower it chose was much scarcer than the others; so that, if it began to load from a daisy, it continued loading from the same, neglecting clover, honeysuckle, and the violet?

As a matter of fact the inconstancy of the bee did not escape the keen observation of Darwin, as the following quotation shows:

In a flower-garden containing some plants of œnothera, the pollen of which

can easily be recognized, I found not only single grains, but masses of it within many flowers of mimulus, digitalis, antirrhinum, and linaria. Other kinds of pollen were likewise detected in these same flowers. A large number of the stigmas of a plant of thyme. in which the anthers were completely aborted, were examined; and these stigmas, though scarcely larger than a split needle, were covered, not only with pollen of thyme brought from other plants by the bees, but with several other kinds of pollen.

And yet Darwin expresses his opinion on the bee's constancy thus:

All kinds of bees, and certain other insects, usually visit the flowers of the same species as long as they can before going to another species.

Other writers have expressed themselves in similar terms. Hermann Müller states that:

The most specialized, and especially the gregarious bees, have produced great differentiations in color, which enables them on their journeys to keep to a single species of flower.

It is a remarkable fact [says Lord Avebury] that in most cases bees confine themselves in each journey to a single species.

And Dr. A. R. Wallace writes:

Now it has been ascertained by several observers that many insects, bees especially, keep to one kind of flower at a time, visiting hundreds of blossoms in succession and passing over other species that may be mixed with them.

As a matter of fact it has not been ascertained by anybody, and the above writers in thus expressing their opinions seem to show that they have not been very familiar with the habits of the real bee. Take, for example, the following notes of what the bee really does in visiting flowers.

Here is one gathering honey from the

little white flowers of the chickweed, from which it goes to dandelion. It returns to chickweed, but presently leaves it for blue veronica. Back to chickweed it goes, and then to dandelion, returning to chickweed once more. Again we see it on veronica, and then it returns to chickweed, where we leave it.

In this corner of the garden, again, is a rockery cn which different species of wild geranium are growing together. On the adjacent wall are hanging great tufts of the ivy-leaved toad-flax. We choose a particular bee out of the many which are resorting here for nectar, and follow its movements as long as we can.

There, that one has visited forty-four flowers, and changed the species of flower ten times.

Again, we catch sight of a bee leaving the flower of a balsam. It flies down, and alights on the purple blossoms of the meadow crane's-bill, from which it goes to wild marjoram. It could scarcely have chosen three more dissimilar and widely separated flowers for consecutive visits.

In this early spring day, again, we find bees busy on the flowers of the chickweed (white), veronica (blue), scilla (blue), and little celandine (yellow. One goes from veronica to chickweed; another from celandine to scilla and back to celandine; a third goes from veronica to chickweed and back to veronica; a fourth goes from celandine to scilla.

And these are not isolated cases:

Examples I could cite you more,
But be contented with these four;
For when one's proofs are aptly chosen,
Four are as valid as four dozen.

And any one can obtain more for himself with a little care. A famous botanist, Kerner von Marilaun, writes on the subject thus:

Insects certainly show a preference for a single species for considerable