Many flowering plants produce honey. This is said by some botanists to have been directly caused by natural selection, because the honey attracts insects. Possibly those who take up this attitude are putting the cart before the horse. It is probable that honey, like oxygen, is an ordinary product of the metabolism of the plant, and that the visits of bees and other insects to such plants are the result rather than the cause of the honey being there. Boisier found that some plants, for example, _Potentilla tormentilla_ and _Geum urbanum_, gave honey in Norway, but very little near Paris. He further discovered that by supplying certain plants copiously with water he could induce them to produce more than their normal output of honey. As is their habit, Neo-Darwinians have pushed their pet theory to absurd lengths in its application to flowers. They assert that the visits of insects are responsible for not merely the general colour of every flower, but also the various lines, spots, and other markings of flowers. The lines that frequently occur on the petals are supposed to guide the insects to the honey! This particular refinement of Neo-Darwinism, to quote Kay Robinson, “needs little discussion. Insects have very poor sight. You can see this when a bee or a butterfly flies bang against a whitewashed wall; when a wasp pounces upon a black spot on a sunlit floor, mistaking it for a fly; or when a settled dragon-fly will allow you to poke it in the face with the end of a walking-stick, although it will be off like a flash if you raise your arm. There is, therefore, large reason to doubt whether insects can even see the fine lines in the throats of flowers which are supposed to guide them to the nectar. It is rather absurd, too, to suppose that such lines can be needed, since insects come in swarms to inconspicuous and apparently scentless flowers or to ‘sugared’ tree-trunks in the dark. Where there is nectar, insects which have come to the feast from a distance need no pencilled lines to guide them over the last quarter of an inch of their journey.” Scents of Flowers Neo-Darwinians further assert that the scents of flowers have been developed by natural selection because they serve to attract insect visitors to the flowers. In support of this contention it is urged that the most highly scented flowers are not usually the most conspicuous ones, since it is not necessary for a flower to be both highly coloured and strongly scented. Again, those flowers which open at night are usually very highly scented. Plausible though this view seems, there are weighty objections to it. These are so admirably summarised by Kay Robinson in the issue of _The Country-Side_ for March 27, 1909, that we feel we cannot do better than reproduce his words:—