68 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Feb., '14 



corded that Triepeolus donatus is an inquiline of Entechnia 

 taurea. Lovell states that this bee visits the Compositae ex- 

 clusively. Of ten local species of Triepeolus, including T. 

 donatus and excluding one of only one visit, none are exclu- 

 sive visitors of Compositae. 



Lovell is correct in saying that in my view a bee is oligotrop- 

 ic everywhere or nowhere. The whole matter is an inference 

 from the fact that a bee has been observed collecting pollen 

 on a certain flower and has not been found doing so on any 

 other. The force of the latter statement depends upon the 

 presumption that the observer would know whether a bee 

 collects pollen from another flower or not. In 1899 I suggested 

 fifty-three bees as oligotropic. I had observed 36/0 visits 

 of 194 nest-making bees to about 400 different kinds of flow- 

 ers, so there was some basis for the presumption that if the 

 bee were not oligotropic I would know it. Nevertheless, from 

 my own observations I have found it necessary to modify six 

 cases and reject four. Lovell quotes my statement: "When 

 the flowers upon which a bee depends becomes extinct or rare, 

 the bee may disappear or be forced to resort to flowers which 

 originally it did not visit." This may be true as a general 

 statement, but I have never used it to support untenable cases. 



The statement of Miiller quoted from the Fertilisation of 

 Flowers (not "Plants"), p. 570, has already been commented 

 on in the Bot. Gaz. 32: 367, 1901. It only shows that Miiller 

 did not understand the flower-visiting habits of bees. 



I do not accept the opinion : "Therefore the entomophilous 

 flora of a region, as a whole, is not better pollinated because 

 a part of the bees are oligotropic than it would be if they were 

 all polytropic." 



Lovell says : r 'The fact that so many bees are oligotropic 

 to the Compositae would seem alone to refute the theory that 

 this habit is an effort on their part to avoid competition by 

 visiting different plant families." Observing that Lovell can 

 fiot cite a passage where anyone has propounded such a theory, 

 let us consider the Compositae oligotropes. In the Can. Ent. 

 42 : 327, I have stated that of twenty exclusive both in their 

 pollen and nectar visits the majority are oligotropes of Com- 



