Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-03-23
Why the Blueb I'll is Blue.


A few years ago, when the problem
of the connection between flowers and
insects still remained much in the
state where Sprengel left it al the end
of the last century, it would have
seemed quite impossible to answer
this question. But nova days, after
the full researches of Darwin, Wallace.
Lubbock, and Herman Muller into the
subject. we can give very satisfactory
solution indeed. We BOW know not
only that the colors of flowers as a
whole are intended to attract insects
in general. but that certain colors are
definitely intended to attract certain
special kinds of insects. Thus, to take
few examples only out of hundreds
that might be cited, the flowers which
lay themselves out for fertilization by
miscellaneous small flies are almost al
ways white; those which depend upon
the beetles are generally yellow; while
those which bid for the favor of bees
and butterflies are usually red, purple,
lilac or blue.
Certain insects always visit one
species of flower alone, and others
pass from blossom to blossom of
one kind only on single day,
though they may vary lit
tie from kind to kind as the season ad-
vances, and one species replaces an
ether. Muller, the most statistical of
Haturdlists, has noticed that while bees
from IS per cent of the insects visiting
the very developed composites, they
form only IA per cent Of those visiting
umbelliferous plants which have, as a
rule, open but by no means snowy
white flowers. Certain blossoms which
lay themselves out to attract wasps
are, AS he quaiEtly puts it, obviously
adapted to less R3thetically cultivated
circle of visitors" And some liyid
red flowers actually resemble in their
color and Odor decaying raw meat;
thus inducing blue-bottle flies to visit
them, and so carry their pollen from
head to head. Down to the minutest
distinction between species, this cor
relation of flowers to the tastes of
their particular guests seems to hold
good. Herman Muller notes that the
common galium of our heaths and
hedges is white, and, therefore, visited
by small flies; while the lady's bed
straw, its near relative, is yellow, and
owes fertilization to little beetles.
Mr.. III. o. Forbes counted on one oc-
casion the visits he saw paid to the
flowers on single bank; and he found
that particular bumble-b bee sucked
the honey of thirty purple dead-nettles
IN succession, passing over without no
tlce all the other plants in the neigh
bOrhoOd; two other species of humble
bee and a cabbage-butterfy also patron
lied the same dead-nettles exclusively.
Fritz Muller noticed lantana in South
America which changes color as It's
Towering advances; and he observed
that each kind of butterfly which Wis
tied it stuck rigidly to its own favorite
color, waiting TO pay its addresses un-
til that color appeared. Mr.. Darwin
cut off the petals of a lobelia, and
found that the hive-Dees never went
near it, though they were very busy
with the surrounding flowers.
But perhaps Sir John Lubeck's lat
est experiments on bees are most con-
elusive of all. He had long ago con-
WINGED himself, by trials of honey
placed on slips of glass above yellow,
pink, or blue paper, that the bees could
discriminate the different colors; and
he has now shown in the same way
that they display marked preference
for blue over all others. The fact is,
blue flowers are, as rule, specialized
for fertilization by bees, and bees,
therefore, prefer this color; while con-
versely the flowers have at the same
time become blue because that was
the color which the bees prefer. As
In most other cases, the adaptation
must have gone on pari passu on both
sides. AS the bee-flowers grew bluer,
the bees must have grown fonder and
fonder of blue; and as they grew
fonder of blue. they must have more
and more constantly preferred the blu
est flowers.