254 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



Miiller (91 ii. a) has shown to be the case in a small Ichneumon 

 Fly which eagerly sought the nectar left in the flowers of Conval- 

 laria Polygonatum by Bombus mastrucatus. 



Ants are especially fond of saccharine matter, and are frequent 

 visitors to flowers, but only for nectar. Their visits are entirely 

 injurious to the plant. They frequently gnaw parts of the flowers 

 and make irregular holes, thus gaining an entrance, or they use 

 the perforations made by other insects. 



Beetles, although not high in the scale of development, and cer- 

 tainly low as far as the adaptation to flowers and their pollination 

 is concerned, show, in a few cases, some ingenuity in getting at 

 nectar, as Miiller (91 i.) found to be the case with Cetonia auratu, 

 which feeds on delicate parts of various flowers, is especially fond 

 of nectar, and was found on the flowers of Convallaria Polygona- 

 tum eating its way from the top of the perianth to where the nec- 

 tar is found at the base of the pistil, where it began to feed on the 

 nectar- secreting gland until the wall of the ovary was reached, 

 when it left the flower. 



The acute observer Sprengel found that large numbers of the 

 flowers of Symphytum officinale were perforated by one of the 

 flower-beetles, and that ants used these perforations. Mr. B. M. 

 Vaughan, who found the flowers of Corydalis aurea perforated at 

 Madison, Wis., is of the opinion that these perforations were 

 made by one of the flower-beetles. 



It is not strange that birds should at times perforate flowers, 

 since so many flowers are well adapted to pollination by them. 

 Prof. Trelease (113) mentions that, according to Prof. W. A. 

 Henry, the humming-bird Trochilus colubris probably perforated 

 the flowers of Tecoma radicans. Dr. Schneck (103) and George 

 Sprang (105) have found these perforated, but the latter found 

 ants gnawing through the corolla. In the Botanic Garden there 

 was hardly a single fully opened flower of this species which did 

 not have a few slits. Prof. Beal reports that Mr. HoUingsworth 

 (50) found the flowers of Fuchsia pierced through at the base of 

 the cal}x-tube and robbed of their nectar. Mr. Robertson writes 

 me that he has seen the humming-bird force its bill into a flower- 

 bud of Lonicera sempervirens so that the lobes of the corolla had 



