. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. 47(1 BEES AiSTD FLOWERS. Perhaps M. Perez exaggerated tlieir importance a little when he said, with Dodel-Port, that ''a hundred thousand species of i)lants would disai)pear 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. We have now arrived at two facts of the first importance: Flowers are necessary to bees, and be
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. 47(1 BEES AiSTD FLOWERS. Perhaps M. Perez exaggerated tlieir importance a little when he said, with Dodel-Port, that ''a hundred thousand species of i)lants would disai)pear 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. We have now arrived at two facts of the first importance: Flowers are necessary to bees, and bees, on their side, are very nseful or even necessary to the fertilization of flowering plants. It now^ remains to inquire whether this reciprocity of service has had as a consecpience 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 which are advantageous to the species are fixed and further developed b}^ 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. FlQ. 5.—Side view of a honeybee. only natural to suppcse that all the variations which favoi- food col- lection in the former and reproduction in the latter will in the coin-se of time be acquired and amplified. This is strictly ivasonable: but science will not rest content with a priori gen(M-alizations, and we nnist discoA'er how far this logical conclusion is justified by actual facts. The adaption of the Mellifei'a to the collection of ])ollen and nectar appears in various degrees through the whole series from tlu' Prosopis to the honeybee Apis 7nellifcr((. Th(> structure of the for- mer does not differ 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 ]\Iellif
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