Half hours with insects . ed guiding lines which lead down to the nectary. Lub-bock remarks that he did not realize the importance of theseguiding lines until, by experiments on bees, he saw how 9 202 HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. [Packard. mucli time they lose if lioney, which is put out for them, ismoved even slightly from its usual place. With good rea-son, therefore, he adopts Sprengels suggestion that the linesand bands by which so many flowers are ornamented havereference to the position of the honey. Lubbock observesthat these honey guides are absent in night flowers, whereof course they wou
Half hours with insects . ed guiding lines which lead down to the nectary. Lub-bock remarks that he did not realize the importance of theseguiding lines until, by experiments on bees, he saw how 9 202 HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. [Packard. mucli time they lose if lioney, which is put out for them, ismoved even slightly from its usual place. With good rea-son, therefore, he adopts Sprengels suggestion that the linesand bands by which so many flowers are ornamented havereference to the position of the honey. Lubbock observesthat these honey guides are absent in night flowers, whereof course they would not be visible, and would therefore beuseless, as for instance in certain English flowers, as Lychnisvespertina or Silene nutans; it is a curious fact that the for-mer flower is white, while Lychnis diurna, which flowers byday, is red. In some cases bees, baffled in their attempts to find thehoney, take a short cut and perforate the corolla with theirjaws. The first and only instance yet known of this curious Fig. Gei-ardia perforated bj bees. trait in this country is that given by Mr. W. W. Bailey inthe American Naturalist, 1873. He noticed that theflowers of Gerardla ]}edicularia were perforated by the beesat the point indicated by p in figure 151 (also seen at a,where the corolla is split open). Mr. Bailey writes, I haveseen bees approach the front for a moment and then retire 10 Packard.] INSECTS OF THE FIELD. 203 as if bafilod. Most of them, however, begin operations at theback at once. The}^ alight with the tail towards the openend of the flower, and at once insert the head into tlie littlehole. I have never seen them make the apertnre, although itis difficult to find a blossom without one. Even the buds areoften penetrated ; out of a large number of flowers pluckedat random from different plants in different localities I can-not find one flower without the slit. The bees alluded towere humble bees. In Europe they are known to perforatethe flowers of the bean and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectinsects, bookyear1881
