president's address. 19 



pollinatoi's, yet do a good deal of that work as amateui-s. Mr. 

 North informs me that Black Cockatoos visit the heads of Bank- 

 sia-flowers in search of honey, and, no doubt, often pollinate 

 some of the flowers in doing so. 



All the special pollinating birds have some peculiarities of 

 structure, which fit them for the special work they have to do. 

 The huiuming-birds are capable of poising on the wing before the 

 flowers they frequent, their beaks are either long or short, slender, 

 curved, and, in some cases, at least, specially adapted to pollen- 

 carrying. In a paper by J. L. Hancock(7), he describes and 

 figures the beak of a humming-bird, showing what he calls a 

 "pollen repository" — a groove in the ventral surface of the bill, 

 and gi'ooves at the angle of the mouth, from the nostril on the 

 upper side. He also describes feathers about the head apparently 

 adapted for holding pollen. These have barbules with barbicels. 

 The pollen-grains are held between two barbules, or the barbs 

 spread apart, and hold pollen like a pair of forceps. 



In a paper by Robert Ridgway(9), he describes the tongue of 

 the hunnning-bird as follows: "The tongue of this species (and 

 doubtless others have a similar conformation) presents, when 

 recent, the appearance of two tubes laid side by side, united for 

 lialf their length, but separate for the remainder. Their sub- 

 stance is transparent in the same degree as a good quill, which 

 they much resemble. Each tube is formed by a lamina rolled 

 up, yet not so as to bring the edges into actual contact, for there 

 is a longitudinal fissure in the outer side running up considerably 

 higher than the junction of the tubes; into this fissure, the point 

 of a pin may be inserted and moved up and down. Near the 

 tip, the outer edge of each lamina ceases to be convolute, but is 

 spread out, and split at the margin into irregular fimbria- which 

 point backward like the vane of a feather. These are not barbs, 

 however, but simply soft and flexible points, such as might be 

 produced by snipping diagonally the edges of a strip of paper. 

 I conjecture that the nectar of flowers is pumped up the tubes, 

 and that minute insects are caught, when in the flowers, in these 

 spoon-like tips, their mimite limbs being perhaps entangled in 



