Advertisement

VON FRISCH TO LECTURE ON HABITS OF INSECTS

Noted German Student of Animals Will Speak on Monday--Found Insects are Not Color-Blind

On Monday at 4.30 o'clock in the Geology Lecture Room all members of the University will have the opportunity of hearing Professor Karl von Frisch, head of the Zoological Institute of Munich, Germany, it was announced yesterday by G.H. Parker '87, director of the Zoological Laboratory. Professor von Frisch, one of the most noted among European students of animal habits, is making a tour of inspection of American Zoological laboratories.

In announcing the lecture Professor Parker said, "The German scientist is interested chiefly in the habits of insects, and has recently demonstrated conclusively that bees and similar insects possess a distinct sense of color, with which they distinguish the various flowers. By an ingenious arrangement of colored plates and dishes of honey water Professor Frisch succeeded in training bees to come to a particular color for their food, thus refuting other investigators who had maintained that all insects are color-blind.

"In his lecture Professor Frisch will also describe and illustrate with moving pictures his discovery of a kind of primitive language among these insects. When a foraging bee returns from the field after discovering an unusually rich source of honey, it performs a peculiar dance which excites the other bees to seek the new source of food."

Advertisement
Advertisement