Insects and Flowers

Abstract

IN reference to the question whether insects are most attracted to flowers by scent or colour, may I mention that while staying at the hotel at Cettinge lately I was amused by the behaviour of some humming-bird sphinx moths. My room was roughly stencilled with a “spotty” pattern of purplish brown on the dull white plaster. Every morning these moths, with their probosces extended, used to attack the dabs of colour, hovering before them, just as though they were real flowers, but starting back with apparent amazement on finding that they were not. This seems the more remarkable because the wonderfully abundant aromatic herbs of that region, which must have supplied their usual food, have all, so far as I know, very inconspicuous flowers.