184 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



plenty of them here, and we could take them home if we 

 knew on what they feed. Do the females lay their eggs on 

 any plant, or in the ground ; and what is that plant ? They 

 appear very feeble if kept for a night in confinement, but 

 recover and shine when placed out on the dewy grass. — 

 A. F. F. : Sea View, Isle of Wight. 



[I have often tried to establish a colony of glow-worms, 

 but have always failed; the light becomes more feeble, night 

 after night, until it dwindles to a spark and disappears. The 

 eggs are attached by means of a kind of liquid glue to a 

 variety of substances, as moss, grass, dead wood, or even 

 earth, apparently without any especial reference to the food of 

 the larva, except that they are generally found in places 

 where its food occurs, as damp ditches and shaded hedge- 

 banks : that food consists of the eggs and young individuals 

 of different species of land-snails; Zonites cellarius and 

 Z. alliarius are especial favourites. The larva? attain their 

 full size in April, and then turn into quiescent pupae, but 

 still retain great muscular power, as evinced by their writhings 

 and twistings when teazed or otherwise annoyed : the pupa 

 can also move its head, antennee, and legs; the female pupa, 

 as in the perfect insect, exhibits no trace of wings or elytra; 

 the male pupa, on the contrary, has the usual representatives 

 of these organs. The universally received hypothesis that the 

 light of the female glow-worm — like a chignon, a pannier, or 

 a crinoline, among ourselves — is a lure to attract the male, 

 requires investigation and consideration. I cannot disprove 

 it; but the presence of this luminosity in the egg, larva and 

 pupa, and also abundantly in the males of some allied 

 species, seems to point to the desirability of some other 

 explanation. — Ec/wnrd A^ewman.] 



Bees Fertilizing Flowers. — I shall be very grateful to any 

 reader who will procure and send me the bees which frequent 

 the bloom of the scarlet-runner or the red clover. It is well 

 known to those who have studied the subject that these 

 plants cannot fertilize themselves, but are dependent on 

 insects for the performance of that office. Our countrymen 

 resident in Central America, where the scarlet-runner would 

 be a most acceptable vegetable, cannot cultivate it to any 

 good purpose, because the natural fertilizer is not indi- 

 genous, and has not been introduced. In like manner the 



