312 Notes on Phainopepla Nitens. [ZOE 
ZAUSCHNERIA Catirornica Presl. The flowers have an oblique ~ — 
position, with stamens and style close against the lower petals 
and sepals. After the anthers begin to discharge their pollen, the 
style lengthens until it is from % to % inch beyond them before it 
unfolds its four lobes and exposes the rough, sticky, stigmatic surface. 
The pollen is collected in little balls of a few grains each, and these 
balls are held loosely together and to the anthers by cobwebby hairs. 
The calyx tube is much constricted above the nectar. The hum- 
ming birds are frequent visitors to these brilliant flowers, and they 
can hardly fail to carry pollen on their throats or breasts. I have 
watched Zauschneria when there were throngs of bees frequenting 
less showy flowers near by and have seen but one bee visit it. Prob- 
ably the shape of the flower prevents them from getting the nectar. 
Its little bronze green visitor, however, seems small enough to reach 
the constriction, and has, perhaps, a tongue sufficiently long to go 
through to the nectar, after emerging from the tube. This bee in- 
variably paused on the lower margin of the flower, and seemed to 
be cleaning its antennz. In this process some pollen usually became 
- attached to its legs and abdomen and might sometimes adhere to the 
stigma of another flower. This, however, was not observed. Zausch- 
neria seems to have some chance for close fertilization. Of course, 
if the pollen simply fell, it would strike the under side of the stigma 
lobes, not the stigmatic surface; but it usually remains attached to 
the anthers for some time after the stigma is exposed, and the little 
masses sometimes swing down on their gossamer threads so far that | 
the slightest jar would send them against their own stigma. During 
a morning’s walk three flowers were seen that had been fertilized in 
rather a novel way. A seed of the plant, with its tuft of hairs, had 
been blown against a pollen mass with sufficient force to land it all 
on the stigma. 
BIOLOGICAL NOTES ON PHAINOPEPLA NITENS. 
BY F. E. BLAISDELL. 
The Phainopepla is a conspicuous summer resident in the western 
part of San Diego County, where it is admired for its black, glossy 
plumage, airy and graceful flight. Even within this region of its 
distribution there are some localities where it is rarely seen, and this 
1s no doubt due to the absence of its food plants and scarcity of trees. 
