. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. 476 BEES AND FLOWERS. Perhaps M. Perez exaggerated Iheir importance a little when he said, with Dodel-Port, that '' a hundred thousand species of plants would disappear from the face of the earth " if the bees ceased their visits, but no one can doubt that such a contingency would cause a very great disturbance in the vegetable kingdom. AVe have now arrived at two facts of the first importance: Flowers are necessary to bees, and bees,
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. 476 BEES AND FLOWERS. Perhaps M. Perez exaggerated Iheir importance a little when he said, with Dodel-Port, that '' a hundred thousand species of plants would disappear from the face of the earth " if the bees ceased their visits, but no one can doubt that such a contingency would cause a very great disturbance in the vegetable kingdom. AVe have now arrived at two facts of the first importance: Flowers are necessary to bees, and bees, on their side, are very useful or even necessary to the fertilization of flowering plants. It now remains to inquire whether this reciprocity of service has had as a consequence any reciprocal adaptation in the two sorts of beings. It is generally admitted that all living things are subject to greater or less variation, and that among these variations those Avhich are advantageous to the species are fixed and further developed by hered- ity and natural selection. So if flowers are necessary to the bees and bees are useful or necessary in the fertilization of flowers, it is. Pig. 5.—Side view of a boneyljeo. only natural to suppose that all the variations which favor food col- lection in the former and reproduction in the latter will in the course of time be acquired and am})litied. This is strictly reasonable: but science will not rest content with a priori generalizations, and we must discover how far this logical conclusion is justified by actual facts. The adaption of the Mellifera to the collection of pollen and nectar appears in various degrees through the whole series from the Prosopis to the honeybee Apis mellifera. Tlie structure of the for- mer does not difier essentially from that of the wasps, only if the jaw appendages have been a little elongated and the hairs a little more numerous we are at the beginning of the real evolution of the Mellifera. In the h()neyl)ee
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