president's address. 17 



form, upright in position, and secreting a great abundance of 

 honey. But Kerner(5) says that laterally directed flowers are 

 visited solely by hovering visitors such as the owlet- and hawk- 

 moths and humming-birds, which require no platform, and, there- 

 fore, none is provided. And he speaks of the absence of plates, 

 ridges, fringes, pegs, or knobs in bird-pollinated flowers. From 

 personal observation, I should think that a large number of them 

 have pendent flowers, as in the Fuchsia and Abutilon. It is 

 certain, too, that honey-eating birds will visit any type of flower 

 that contains much nectar. Moseley(6) speculates whether the 

 humming-birds of Juan Fernandez may not be the agents of 

 pollination in the strawberi'ies, cherries, peaches, and apples. It 

 is certain that honey-eating birds will visit any flower, no matter 

 what type, that contains much honey. Beal records the pollina- 

 tion of cherries and catmint, and red clo\'cr is recorded by another 

 observer. 



Still, there is no doubt but that the majority of bird-pollinated 

 flowers are more or less tubular, are brilliant in colour, and con- 

 tain much honey. Further investigation will result in other 

 types being recognised, but the above is no doubt the commonest. 

 It is remarkable how soon birds recognise suitable introduced 

 plants. Our Australian honey-eaters regularly visit Hibiscus, 

 Abutilon, Tecoma capense, and other species, Bignonia venusta, 

 B. radicans, Pentstemon, Gladiolus, Honeysuckle, Cotyledon, 

 Echeveria, and Agave, all eminently adapted to bird-visitors. 



One fact that must not be lost sight of is, that flowers specially 

 adapted for pollination by birds, are equally adapted for visits 

 from hawk-moths, and other moths with long probosces. Bates(4) 

 relates how he, several times, shot a moth instead of a bird, and 

 says that the manner of flight and poise before a flower are pre- 

 cisely like those actions in a humming-bird. Only after some 

 days was he able to distinguish the bird from the moth. He 

 records, also, that the natives, and many of the educated whites, 

 believed the moth was a bird. The daylight and crepuscular 

 hawk-moths do frequent the same flowers, and are as successful 

 in pollinating them, as the birds. I have observed that Clero- 



