V;*-^^'S_^V, 



"^©t© ©IPIgL ©(2)FKHK@Flt. 



1 



Wanted. — Short notes of interest to the general bot- 

 anist are always in demand for this department. Our 

 readers are invited to make this the place of publication 

 for their botanical items. 



The Needs of Nature Study, — What we need in this 

 country, and what we will ultimately have, is a body of 

 teachers who have themselves been properly taught before 

 they have been set the difficult task of instructing the 

 children. Furthermore the daily press requires liberal 

 education in its selection of paragraphs on natural science 

 topics. The attitude of most editors is inexplicable if we 

 assume them to be in anj^ way anxious for truth. The 

 v^ritings of students and observers are set aside for bizarre 

 stories of wonderful tropical plants exhibiting human in- 

 telHgence, or of trees that poison all who pass by them. 

 The need was never greater for a large and well -trained 

 body of teachers and writers or biological subjects. — Plant 

 World. 



Pilfering Insects, — Flow^ers secrete honey for the 

 bees, butterflies and moths, and reserve it for them by 

 fencing out creeping insects and other small game. All 

 this of course is intended to promote cross-pollination, 

 but the bees often abuse the trust reposed in them by steal- 

 ing the honey without transferring the pollen. They bite 

 through the tips of long spurs or make jjerforations at the 

 base of deep corollas and so get at the honey with less 

 effort than if the}-- obtained it in the v^ray intended by the 

 flowers. It is remarkable how accurately they gauge the 

 location of the nectar, never making a puncture in the 

 wrong place, and seeming to indicate a fair amount of 

 reasoning power in apian brains. Sometimes they bite 

 through both calyx and corolla when this is the most di- 

 rect line to the sweets. Among flowers oftenest punctured 

 are the jewel-weeds, flowering currants, the lungwort 



