Published monthly by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA • Sound Beach, Connecticut, 



Subscription, $1.00 a year Single copy, 10 cents 



Entered as Second-Class Matter June 12, 1909, at Sound Beach Post Office, under Act of March 3, 1897. 



Volume IX 



MAY, 1917 



Number 12 



Afield in the Month of May. 



BY HERBERT W. EAUEKNKR, WASHINGTON,, 

 CONNECTICUT. 



A story is told of a young- girl who, 

 while reading to her grandmother, stop- 

 ped and exclaimed, "Grandma ! Here is 

 a typographical error." 



"Never mind," the old lady replied. 

 "Kill it, and go on." . 



This little incident illustrates the 

 view held by a number of people con- 

 cerning every living thing that walks 

 or swims or flies. But a part of the 

 work of this Association is to study the 

 lives of these little creatures and to 

 find what they do toward the weaving 

 of the great fabric of Nature's mantle. 



American bees and ants have not 

 yet been thoroughly and systematical- 

 ly investigated. Much is still to be 

 learned about their life histor}^ Scien- 

 tists do not agree as to whether or not 

 bees are attracted by certain colors. 

 Gardeners assume that all ants are 

 harmful to vegetation and slay whole 

 colonies, not knowing that most ants 

 are flesh eaters and that they spend 

 their little lives in killing oft' small 

 pests. 



Insects perform a great service in 

 the cross-fertilizing of flowers. Our 

 cover design shows a butterfly ap- 

 proaching the flowers of the pink 



azalea, whose pistils, protruding far 

 beyond the stamens, will receive the 

 pollen it is bringing, and on its nearer 

 approach the stamens will give it a 

 fresh load to carry to other flowers. 



This is but one of the many schemes 

 by which insects are compelled to act 

 as couriers to the flowers. 



Another system for accomplishing 

 similar results consists in shedding pol- 

 len before the stigma is ripe and ready 

 to receive it, so that the flower cannot 

 be fertilized by its own pollen but some 

 insect must carry it over to an older 

 flower, where the stamens are wither- 

 ed and the pollen has been shed but 

 where the stigma is ripe and ready to 

 receive and hold it. The wild gera- 

 nium, in bloom about this time, will be 

 found to exhibit this interesting meth- 

 od of cross-fertilization. But the most 

 interesting methods are those found in 

 the orchids. In May we should be on 

 the lookout for the Orchis spectahilis, 

 described in these pages a year ago, and 

 we should search for the Andromeda 

 ligustrina, a shrub growing in moist 

 places and bearing small flowers that 

 shoot clouds of sulphur-like pollen upon 

 the insects that visit them. 



There are mia.ny of these sly trick 

 flowers at work around us, but it takes 

 sharp eyes to discover their legerdemain. 



Copyright J917 by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Conn. 



