ai 



ABSTRACT OF MONTHLY SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS, 



FEBRUARY. 



Letter from Mr. G. S. Saunders on the relation letween Plants 



and Insects. 



Colonel Horsley read the following letter : — 



St. Stephen's Lodge, Cantorhurj', 



23rd January, 1879. 

 Dear Sir, — Some of the members of the East Kent Natural 

 Historj' Societj', who heard Fir John Lubbock's very interesting 

 lecture, in this city, on the relation between plants and insects, 

 in which he mentioned that Bumble Bees are the only insects 

 which assist in the fertilization of the Antirrhinum, on account 

 of the peculiar formation of the flowers, may be interested in the 

 following notes, made last autumn, on this insect, by myself. 

 One morning in September last I noticed a lai'ge female Bumble 

 Bee collecting nectar from the flowers of an Antirrhinum, grow- 

 ing at one end of a long border containing several Antirrhi- 

 nimis, and a dozen or more different kinds of j)lants in full 

 bloom. Having visited all the flowers on that plant, she flew to 

 the next Antirrhinum and so on all down the border, paying no 

 attention to the other flowers, and not missing a single plant of 

 Antirrhinum, as if she knew she had a better chance of obtain- 

 ing nectar from them than from the other plants. "When she 

 settled on a flower she alighted on the lower lip, to which she 

 clung tightlj', her weight causing it to fall siifficicntlj' for her to 

 thi'ust her head in far enough to enable her to reach the nectar 

 with her proboscis. Occasionally she flew about a flower without 

 attempting to open it, from which I think we may conclude she 

 had some means of knowing that these flowers were not worth 

 visiting. Once or twice having withdrawn from a flower she 

 buzzed about and re-entered it. I gathered some of the flowers 

 to ascertain what force was required to open them, and found 

 that on an average a weight of 20 grains would cause the flower 

 to open a quarter of an inch. They, however, varied consider- 

 ably, some opening with 3 grains, and others requiring 34 

 graius ; the older flowers opened easiest. I experimented on 



