304 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



CURIOUS HABIT OF BEES. 



A correspondent of the Torre y Botanical Club of New 

 York narrates an interesting fact in the history of the bum- 

 ble-bee, as witnessed by him during the present season. In 

 collecting some specimens of Dicentra cucullariahe observed 

 that the spurs of many of their flowers had been perforated 

 or cut, and, on looking about for the cause, he found that this 

 was done by the bees, for the purpose of more readily getting 

 at the honey inclosed. He observed that they alighted first 

 on 'the lowest flower, and cut a hole in the spur with the 

 mandible, and then inserted the proboscis and took a sip of 

 the honey; thence going to a second flower and to a third, 

 repeating the operation each time. 



On another visit he found that the original hole would be 

 used a second time without a renewal of the puncture. The 

 bees appeared to know the exact moment when the flower 

 was fully grown and the honey secreted. Honey-bees were 

 noticed using the perforations made by the bumble-bees to 

 obtain the honey, but never made any incisions themselves. 

 Other species of Dicentra, as spectabilis and eximia, were sim- 

 ilarly treated. Bulletin Torrey Botanical Club, 1872, III., 33. 



COMPARISON BETWEEN MASSACHUSETTS' AND EUROPEAN FAUNA. 



Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys has lately presented to the British As- 

 sociation a comparative estimate of the mollusca of Europe 

 and of Massachusetts, basing this upon the results of his visit 

 to the United States during the summer of 1871. For Europe 

 he enumerates about 800 marine, and 200 land and fresh-water 

 species, while for Massachusetts he allows 367 distinct species, 

 together with 40 considered as varieties. Of these 173 are 

 considered as European namely, 39 land and fresh-water 

 (out of 110); and marine, 134 (out of 257). This peculiarity 

 of the distribution of the American mollusca he explains by 

 the suggestion that the land and fresh-water species probably 

 migrated from Europe to Canada through Northern Asia, and 

 that most of the marine species must have passed from the 

 arctic seas, by Davis's Strait current, southward to Cape Cod ; 

 and the remainder from the Mediterranean and western coasts 

 of the Atlantic, by the Gulf Stream, in a northerly direction. 

 12 A, August 29, 1872, 364. 



