linia on the head; Ophrys lutea is visited by the males of 
Andrena nigro-olivacea Dours and Andrena senecionis 
Perez, and Ophrys fusca only by the males of Andrena 
trimmerana Kirby and Andrena nigroaenea var. nigro- 
sericea Dours, all of these insects entering the flower in 
the reverse position and removing the pollinia on the tip 
of the abdomen. 
In Australia, in May 1927, Mrs. Coleman published 
a preliminary statement, in the Victorian Naturalist, de- 
scribing the behavior of the Ichneumonid wasp Lisso- 
pimpla semipunctata Kirby which visits the orchid Cryp- 
tostylis leptochila F.v. Muell., but she refrained at that 
time from giving free expression to the conclusions she 
must have drawn, and simply stated two facts: that the 
insect visits the orchid and assumes the reverse position ; 
that the insect effects pollination. In the following year 
(April 1928), Mrs. Coleman published a second paper 
inthe Victorian Naturalist, giving a detailed account of 
further observations on Cryptostylis leptochila. Her con- 
clusions were so extraordinary that they would have 
justified incredulity had not the opinions of other inves- 
tigators substantiated them. She linked the Australian 
‘ase with the ones observed in Algeria and France. There 
was no doubt in her mind but that the orchid flower, 
through what she termed mimicry, exercises sexual at- 
traction for the males of Lissopimpla semipunctata and 
she assumed that mimicry of form is reinforced by ascent 
too faint for perception by human beings. 
Besides the lure of ‘‘mimicry”’ it is indeed highly 
probable that the orchid gives off a scent that produces 
a stimulus at a distance because the flowers, even when 
taken into a room with partially closed windows, are 
visited by the males of Lissopimpla semipunctata. On one 
occasion when flowers were placed on a shelf beneath a 
window they were visited almost instantly by three 
[12] 
