The Monmouth inquirer., 1923-02-01
Fiction Detective Is 0utdone in
Quest for Clues to Secret
of the Flowers.
EVEN BEES HELP IN SEARCH
Question of Which Buds Attract
Honeymakers Has important Bear
ing on case-Ree Carries Tell
tale Entries on Legs.

Y =
terry stories have been borrowing from
science for Improvement of detective
methods, DR.. f. X. Richtmyer of Cor
nell university and DR.. f. r. Lutz of
the American Museum of Natural His
tory have been borrowing detective
methods for scientific research In the
last year. They have been engaged by
the National Research council to solve
one Of the important problems Of sci
enee. 1t Is essentially a detective job,
requiring the most delicate kind Of
trailing, spying, spotting and inside
work.
The mere statement of the mystery
does not suggest false whiskers,
marked bills and the dictaphone. The
problem is simply: why have flowers
color?"
Until recently it was assumed, on
orthodox Darwinian lines, that flowers
had developed colors to attract pol
lenating insects whose visits were nee
essary for the manufacture of seeds.
But recently this theory has been chal-
Ienged. Experiments have indicated
that insects may be color-blind. Some
apparently cannot see red. Why should
flowers be red If bees, moths and ether
pollenatfng insects cannot see rodf
Why should they display other hues,
brilliant to the human eye but appar.
emily invisible to insects2
Blind to Some coIora-
Other experiments indicated that X
the bee. the moth and the fly are blind
to some colors that we see they cRn
see other colors invisible to US. They
can see or in some way detect ultra
violet light, which is mere b~lackness
to human beings. So it became ln4.
portant ~to.learn how ultraviolet colerg
attract insects.
Doctor Richtmyer, q physicist of Cor
nell, and Doctor Lutz, an e~ntomologist
of the American Museum of Natural
History, were chosen to work out the
fine detective devices needed for sleuth-
ing among insects and flowers.
The investigators were put OF the
case to discover whether flower cOlors,
visible and invisible, are efficient in
attracting insects.
A years work on this difficult case
has produced a good deal of informa-
ton. Doctor Richtmyer has found flow
ers which reflect no ultraviolet color
at all, others which reflect 1t richly,
others which reflect 1t In varying pro-
portions and some which reflect 1t
strongly from some parts of their sur
Poaa ord not 81 oil P.orn o%hn,. m RIO
The next step is to discover whether
a bee shows a preference for flowers
which are strong In ultraviolet color
ing-whatever it may be-or whether
it is biased in favor Of any particular
color.
A year ago the only method for solv-
ing the problem was leg-work. The
scientist would have TO pick out a bee
and shadow it, following the bee from
flower to flower and jotting down in
his notebook, like a Scotland Yard
man, what flowers the insect visited
and what it overlooked. But 1t is diff
f1cult to follow a bee on It's rounds, be-
cause it keeps darting off In unexpect-
ed directions and losing itself among
the other bees In the same field. 1t
would take many years of field work
by many observers to get enough statis-
tics to establish what colors a bee pre-
fers.
Here Doctor Lutz invented a short
cut, an armchair detective trick which
enables a scientist in his laboratory to
gather facts In one day which the
field worker could not collect In a
year. 1t might be expressed briefly by
saying that the bee keeps, a diary and
that the investigator discovered a
means of reading the diary. Sherlock
Holmes reconstructed the route walked
bv his friend Watson from the yaria-
tons Of mud stain ON WatSon's boots.
Similar telltale entries are recorded on
the legs of the bee. They are placed
on file bv the bee in storing his honey,
so that his conduct day by day for a
whole season is registered in detail.
Traced by Pollen.
The grains of pollen indicate where
a bee has been. Each flower has q
different type of pollen grain. Under
the microscope one Is like a curry
comb, another is a disk, q third is a
lozenge, a fourth is covered with hair,
a fifth is twisted like a figure 8 and so
IN. A grain from any flower is distin-
%guishable from the grain of any other
flower.
Take a bee, the Investigator found,
brush off his legs, examine the sweep
ings under n microscope and from the
character OF the grains 1t is possible to
tell every flower which the bee has
looted of honey on its last flight.
BY another application of this meth
cd it is possible to lay bare the history
Of a given bee for months. In storing
honey in special cells for the young the
bee, on each return to the hive, depos-
its the pollen grains that stick to it's
] Irs-x I,-, No. rxf1aksNn - A. -.o,-