BY A. G. HAMILTON. 761 



flowers, of flowers from other branches, and from distant trees, 

 with the result that although the ovulary swelled for a time, it 

 ultimately dropped off. Practically, however, even using pollen 

 from distant trees was the same as taking it from the same 

 individual, as all the trees in the neighbourhood were taken as 

 cuttings from the same parent tree. The clusters of flowers are 

 large and very conspicuous, and the main crop is borne in winter 

 and early spring when the trees are leafless, but flowers may be 

 found on individual trees at almost any season. The clusters 

 of flowers are visited by Acanthorhynchus temdrostris, various 

 species of Ptilotis and Strepera graculi.nd. Ptilotis is especially 

 fond of them, and numbers of these birds spend the day in the 

 trees, probing the flowers and chasing each other about. With 

 a butterfly net I captured one which flew into the house 

 through an open window. On holding it in my hand and offering 

 it a flower it immediately inserted its beak and cleaned out the 

 calyx with its brush-tipped tongue and afterwards when set free 

 in the room not only sucked flowers (if the expression sucked 

 may be allowed) but took honey from a spoon and drank water 

 freely when a glass was offered to it. It is to these birds that 

 the pollination of the stigmas is mostly due, 1 think, as they are 

 just of the right length of beak and head to gather pollen from 

 the projecting stamens. In sucking the honey they insert the 

 beak on the inner side of the curved petals, and the force they 

 exert in pi^essing it causes the anthers to rub against the throat 

 of the bird, depositing pollen there, which is transferred to the 

 stigmas of other blossoms. 



Belt (4, p. 130) gives an account of the pollination of the 

 Palosabre (a South American species of Erythriaa) by humming 

 birds, which agrees in the main with the above, except that he 

 does not mention any twist in the flowers, and that the chief 

 object of the birds is the capture of insects which resort to the 

 flowers. I have never seen bees \isit the flowers of E, indica, 

 but small beetles and flies frequent them, and are, no doubt, 

 sought for by the birds. Miiller (1, p. 215) quotes Darwin's 

 statement on the authority of Mac Arthur that in N.S. Wales 

 50 



