312 Notes on Phainopepla Nitens. [zoe 



Zauschneria Californica Presl. The flowers have an oblique 

 position, with stamens and style close against the lower petals 

 and sepals. After the anthers begin to discharge their pollen, the 

 style lengthens until it is from ^ to ^ inch beyond them before it 

 unfolds its four lobes and exposes the rough, sticky, stigmatic surface. 

 The pollen is collected in little balls of a few grains each, and these 

 balls are held loosely together and to the anthers by cobwebby hairs. 

 The calyx tube is much constricted above the nectar. The hum- 

 ming birds are frequent visitors to these brilliant flowers, and they 

 can hardly fail to carry pollen on their throats or breasts. I have 

 watched Zauschneria when there were throngs of bees frequenting 

 less showy flowers near by and have seen but one bee visit it. Prob- 

 ably the shape of the flower prevents them from getting the nectar. 

 Its little bronze green visitor, however, seems small enough to reach 

 the constriction, and has, perhaps, a tongue sufficiently long to go 

 through to the nectar, alter emerging from the tube. This bee in- 

 variably paused on the lower margin of the flower, and seemed to 

 be cleaning its antennae. In this process some pollen usually became 

 attached to its legs and abdomen and might sometimes adhere to the 

 stigma of another flower. This, however, was not observed. Zausch- 

 neria seems to have some chance for close fertilization. Of course, 

 if the pollen simply fell, it would strike the under side of the stigma 

 lobes, not the stigmatic surface; but it usually remains attached to 

 the anthers for some time after the stigma is exposed, and the little 

 masses sometimes swing down on their gossamer threads so far that 

 the slightest jar would send them against their own stigma. During 

 a morning's walk three flowers were seen that had been fertilized in 

 rather a novel way. A seed of the plant, with its tuft of hairs, had 

 been blown against a pollen mass with sufticient force to land it all 

 on the stigma. 



BIOLOGICAL NOTES ON PHAINOPEPLA NITENS. 



BY F. E. BLAISDELL. 



The Phainopepla is a conspicuous summer resident in the western 

 part of San Diego County, where it is admired for its black, glossy 

 plumage, airy and graceful flight. Even within this region of its 

 distribution there are some localities where it is rarely seen, and this 

 is no doubt due to the absence of its food plants and scarcity of trees. 



