272 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [November, 



the fruit-grower of his belief, but so far as he is able to see now there has 

 not been the slightest trace of injury from the application. He thinks 

 much of the difficulties with insectices are due to the farmer rather than 

 to the poison used. We always know what we recommend, but we 

 never know what the farmer actually does. The result is that reports 

 are conflicting, and we are sometimes at a loss to explain results. 



Mr. Fletcher spoke of the importance of a knowledge of the action of 

 the insecticides on all the insects and suggested that it was not always 

 safe to recommend applications for one insect simply because they had 

 proved successful on another. He was much surprised to hear from Mr. 

 Kirkland that lime did not have the effect of reducing injury from the 

 arsenites, and thinks that is a point that should be carefully examined. 

 He had been recommending lime equal in weight to the poison used. 



By an arrangement with the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural 

 Science, a joint meeting was held at 4 o'clock for the reading of papers 

 interesting to both sections. Before this meeting Mr. A. D. Hopkins read 

 a paper on " Pollen Distributing Insects Observed on Flowers of Timothy 

 and Red Clover." Mr. Hopkins described the structure of the clover 

 flower and the location of the pollen, and from his observations it appears 

 that many more insects than have usually been credited, are able to fer- 

 tilize the clover flower. He believes that not only the bumble-bees, but 

 even short-tongued bees are useful, and he described the mechanism for 

 the release and discharge of the pollen. Mr. Smith suggested that the 

 case was not proved by the observations made, unless it was assumed 

 that the flower of the clover is self-fertile. If it is, then Mr. Hopkins' 

 observations indicate that any insect that is capable of producing the re- 

 lease of the pollen is able to pollenize the clover flower. If it requires 

 the pollen from another head, the proof is not so good. 



It may be interjected that this question was somewhat discussed by the 

 members, informally, particularly with reference to the origin of the be- 

 lief that bumble-bees were the chief agents, or perhaps the sole agents in 

 fertilizing the flowers of red clover. Also some question was made as to 

 the truth of the commonly related story of the clover and bumble-bees 

 in Australia. There stems to be no doubt that the story of the importa- 

 tion of bumble-bees in Australia is true, but no one was able to refer to 

 any scientific account of the introduction, or to any record of accurate 

 observations made in the matter. It seemed also that the set of clover 

 seed depended upon many circumstances, and that sometimes where the 

 clover was apparently poor, the heaviest set of seed was found. It was 

 suggested that in such cases the florets of the clover head were less de- 

 veloped and much shorter than they would be normally, and that this 

 brought them within range of the shorter tongued bees and other insects. 



Mr. Howard read before the joint session, a biographical sketch of Dr. 

 C. V. Riley, which it is impossible to abstract. 



(To be continued.) 



