288 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



Thus, in instances where the temperature of the body was 

 raised, and the production of carbonic acid was excessive, the 

 blood on the right side of the heart had its fibrine often precipi- 

 tated, and in many other cases fibrinous or albuminous exuded 

 liuids were solidified, as was the case in croup. The author, in 

 the course of his paper, explained how rapidly blood charged with 

 carbonic acid obsorbed oxygen when exposed to that gas; and 

 he held that carbonic acid in the venous blood was as essential 

 to the process of respiration as was the oxygen in the pulmonary 

 organs. 



FERTILIZATION OF FLOWERS BY INSECTS. 



This is the title of an original paper by Dr. William Ogle, in 

 the April number of the " Popular Science Review."' 



The fertilization of the Heath family is treated in a very inter- 

 esting manner. The writer describes the use of the arms or 

 appendages on the back of the anthers in Heaths, by which the 

 bee moves the anther so that the pollen falls out upon the insect's 

 head. The fertilization of papilionaceous blossoms, particularly 

 bean flowers, is also treated of. The writer notes that some bees 

 get at the nectar by making a hole in the side of the calyx tube, 

 while others enter by the regular way; an individual bee keeps 

 persistently to one or the other mode in visiting a number of bean 

 flowers. " It would thus appear that the habit is not an instinct, 

 belonging by inheritance to the whole species, but is in each 

 case the result of individual experience. As others have not, we 

 must admit not only that these insects are intelligent, but that 

 they differ from each other in their degrees of intelligence, some 

 being slow in acquiring knowledge, others quicker." Editor. 



CROSS-FERTILIZATION AND LAW OF SEX IN EUPHORBIA. 



Mr. Charles Darwin's interesting observations on cross-fertili- 

 zation have opened a new world for original discovery. The list 

 of plants which seem to avoid self-fertilization is already very 

 large. I think Euphorbia may be added to the number. Cer- 

 tainly this is the case with E. fnlgens, Karw. (E. jacquinqflora, 

 Hook), which I have watched very closely in my greenhouse 

 this winter. Several days before the stamens burst through the 

 involucre, which closely invests them, the pistil with its ovarium 

 on the long pedicel has protruded itself beyond, exposed its stig- 

 matic surfaces, and received the pollen from the neighboring 

 flowers. The way in which the pollen scatters itself is curious. 

 In most flowers a slight jar or a breath of wind will waft the 

 pollen to the stigmas, but I have not been able to notice any to 

 Jeave the flowers in this way ; for as soon as the anther cells burst, 

 the white stamen falls from its filament-like pedicel, and either 

 drops at once on the pistils of other flowers or scatters its pollen 

 grains by the force of the fall. This Euphorbia also furnishes 

 another contribution to the theory of sex which I have ad- 



