20 president's address. 



the fimbrije, when the tongue is i*etracted into the beak, and the 

 insects swallowed by the ordinary process, as doubtless those are 

 which are captured by the beak when in iiight." 



Prof. Beal(ll) gives the results of the investigations of some 

 students into bird-pollination by humming-biixls. They visit 

 flowers for at least two objects, for insects and for nectar. 

 Pollen-grains have been found on the bills and on the heads of 

 the birds. They were seen to frequent pelargoniums, fuchsias, 

 trumpet-creeper, phloxes, verbenas, catmint, milkweed, tropoeo- 

 lums, honeysuckles, lilacs, morning-glories, cherries, and wild 

 balsam. 



In the latter, the anthers form a covering to the pistil. Tf 

 the flowers are covered up, no seed is produced. Humming-birds 

 visited all the open flowei's. Every time one plunged his beak 

 in, the head, a little above the beak, became dusted with pollen. 

 Where the anthers were removed, the birds left pollen on the 

 stigma. All the flowers in one cluster were visited twice in 15 

 minutes. Impaticns fidva is cross-fertilised mainly, if not 

 entirely, by humming-birds. 



Trelease, in a note supplementary to Prof. Beal'slU), says the 

 Ruby-throat is often seen to get nectar from both glands at the 

 base of the cotton flowers. It was constantly seen at the 

 flowers of Oenothera smuata, very often about those of the may- 

 pop {Passlflora incarnata), the white-flowered buckeye (Aescidus 

 parviflora), the wild and cultivated morning-glories, yellow day- 

 lily, white oleander, several sorts of pelargonium, lemon, fuchsia, 

 larkspur, malaviscus, zinnia, sage-bush, osier-willow. One was 

 seen at the flowers of gourd, and several times at flowers of 

 Lobelia eardinalis, where they usually acted as the one spoken of 

 in American Naturalist, 1S79, p. 431. Flowers of Erythrina 

 herhacea were often visited, and they appear to be adapted for 

 fertilisation by them like the Palosabre in Belt. According to 

 Gould, to number all the flowers visited by them would be 

 equivalent to repeating the names of half the plants of North 

 America. The same author also gives an account(ll) of the 

 fertilisation of Salvia sphndeuft. One of the flowers visited had 



