THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



145 



the capital projection, to piercing the slight 

 covering of the stem left ungnawed by the 

 larva. The former is very regular in its 

 appearance as a moth at the time of the 

 flowering of Yucca Jilamentosa, a fact which 

 would indicate that it was modified while 

 living upon that species and had a range 

 co-extensive with it and other species 

 blooming simultaneously. The latter ap- 

 pears earlier, as the food of its larva is 

 earlier ready. Which of the two insects is 

 the oldest in time, or whether the diverg- 

 ence from some archetypal form has been 

 simultaneous, are matters of opinion which 

 those interested in evolution will decide 

 for themselves one way or the other, or 

 according as knowledge increases. That 

 other species of both these genera will yet 

 be discovered, there can be but little doubt. 

 This Bogus V'ucca Moth is subject to the 

 attacks of at least one parasite, a honey-yel- 

 low Braconid, « hich Mr. Cresson considers 

 new, and which is described in this num- 

 ber as Exothecus prodoxi. 



THE FERTILIZATION OF THE TULIP. 



BY W. H. PATTOM, WATERBURY, CT. 



It has been believed that the nectar of 

 the tulip is poisonous to bees and that they 

 rarely escape from the flower alive. How- 

 ever this may be with the yellow tulip, 

 Tulipa syli'estris, in which Kerner (Flowers 

 and their Unbidden Guests, p. 88) has de- 

 scribed a special contrivance for excluding 

 small insects from the nectar secreted at 

 the bases of the filaments, it cannot apply 

 to our common garden tulip, T. gesneriana, 

 for in this species there are neither glands 

 to secrete nectar nor tangles of hairs to pro- 

 tect it, and I have never found nectar in 

 the flowers. It is, moreover, small insects 

 which the plant appears to attract, although 

 the smooth cup of the perianth probably 

 excludes crawling insects. Some of the 

 smaller species of bees of the genus Hal- 

 ictus I have, during the past five years, ob- 

 served to be frequent guests, coming for 

 the pollen. They always alight upon either 

 the perianth or the stigma, most frequently 



upon the latter, and crawling down from 

 their alighting place to the base of the 

 stamens, they then climb up to reach their 

 booty. Whatever pollen they bring from 

 other flowers has therefore a chance of 

 reaching the stigma first. The perianth 

 of the flower is red, the stigma is yellow 

 and the stamens, which are deeper down 

 in the cup of the flower and thus to a cer- 

 tain extent out of the line of the bee's 

 flight, are black ; and it is probable tliat 

 the marked difference in the color of the 

 stigma serves to attract the bees to the 

 proper and most convenient landing. 



There appear to have been no direct 

 observations hitherto made upon the fer- 

 tilization of the tulip by insects. It may 

 be that in the native home of the plant 

 large insects are concerned in its fertiliz- 

 ation, or that T.sylvestris thus differs from 

 T. gesneriana; but Kerner's supposition 

 that the trichomes on the filaments of T. 

 sylvestris are intended to exclude small 

 insects from the nectar, is open to doubt in 

 view of the observations upon the visits of 

 small bees to the other species. A similar 

 structure for protecting the nectar in Ger- 

 aniutn sylvaticum was believed by Sprengel 

 to serve as a shield against rain, and it 

 may be that this is the real purpose in the 

 tulip. Whether the supposition (of which 

 mention is made in Miss Staveley's "British 

 Insects," p. 250) that the nectar of the 

 tulip is poisonous, is founded upon authen- 

 ticated facts, is also worthy of further in- 

 vestigation. 



Tallow to preserve Insect Collec- 

 tions. — The odor of tallow is disagreeable 

 and repellant to a large number of insects, 

 and it has long been the custom to protect 

 woolen goods from the clothes-moth, dur- 

 ing the summer months, by placing among 

 them a tallow candle wrapped in paper. 

 For some time past, I have employed the 

 same protective means for the preserva- 

 tion of my entomological collection from 

 the attack of the Dertnestes lardarius and 

 the Anthrenus varitts, by placing tallow 

 candles among my cases, and small pieces 

 of the same within the cases. Some inter- 



