382 MR. С. Е. М. SWYNNERTON ON 
ascertaining what has already been written on the subject of ornithophily in 
flowers; and to Mr. W. В. Ogilvie-Grant, Mr. Н. Grónvold, and Mr. G. В. 
Lodge, for their kind and useful suggestions with regard to the sunbirds 
roughly outlined in Plates 31 and 32. Finally, it is probable that these notes 
would not have been published at all had it not been for Professor Poulton. 
2. Some previous observations.—Dr. Paul Knuth, in his excellent * Hand- 
book of Flower-Pollination, gives a résumé, with lists, of such observations 
on ornithophilous flowers as had been recorded up to 1897, and refers to a 
perhaps fuller account of the subject (E. Löw, “Ueber Ornithophilie Bliithen,” 
in Festschrift zur 150 jährigen Bestehen des Kel. Realgymnasiums, 1897, 
pp- 51-61), which I have unfortunately so far been unable to procure. 
I extract the following passages from Mr. J. В. Ainsworth Davies’s trans- 
lation of Dr. Knuth’s account of the subject (pp. 73-77) :— 
a. * Humming-birds and honey-birds . . . . are not the chief or exclusive 
agents of cross-pollination in many flowers. According to the reports of 
Fritz Müller to his brother Hermann (Schenk’s * Handbuch der Botanik, 
i. p. 17), there are also larger birds that do this—the large flowers of 
Carolinea, with their immensely long filaments, are not pollinated by 
humming-birds, whieh are much too small, but by woodpeckers and other 
relatively large forms. Hermann Müller further remarks (op. cit.) : 
* Woodpeckers may seek in the flowers for insects as well as honey, but 
certainly for the latter. ” 
It will be seen that the equivalent statement is also true of. African birds. 
Sunbirds and honey-birds are by no means the exclusive agents of pollination 
there. 
B. Fritz Müller, writing to F. Ludwig (Bot. Centralbl. lxxi. 1897, 
рр. 301-302) on humming-birds, says : * I could almost believe that the list 
of flowers not visited by them would be considerably smaller than a list of 
those that are visited. . . . In the winter months when butterflies and bees 
are very гаге.... these birds are almost the only flower visitors." 
At any rate, the first part of this statement is to a large extent true also of 
sunbirds in Africa. 
y. Fritz Müller goes оп to sav : “ Frequently (like the largest of our bees, 
а Xylocopa) they steal the nectar by boring, e. g. in Abutilon and the 
beautiful Jacaranda (digitaliflora ?).” — In Europe sparrows break crocuses 
and bullfinches primroses, for the nectar. In Africa, too, both sunbirds 
and Xylocopa “steal the nectar by boring." I have not myself seen the 
earpenter-bees doing this, but my friend Mr. G. A. K. Marshall tells me 
that he has very frequently watched them slitting the flower-bases. In 
birds, apart from what I have seen myself, I have just come across the 
following statement in Capt. Shelley’s * Birds of Africa,’ ii. p. 90:“ Dr. P. 
Rendall, in his recent notes on the ornithology of the Gambia, remarks : 
‘Scarcely a flowering shrub in my garden yielded any flowers the corollas 
