358 



Mr. La-wrence Bruner's Report as Entomologist to the State Board of Agri- 

 culture in Nebraska. — Mr. Bruiier's reprint of bis report from the Annual 

 Keport of the State Board of xVgriculture for 1891 has been received. 

 He devotes the seventy pages allotted to him to a consideration of the 

 insects which affect Corn. He shows that the corn crop is the most 

 important of the staples of Nebraska and that probably one-seventh of 

 the crop is annually destroyed by insects. He lists something- over one 

 hundred species, and describes their habits and the remedies to be 

 used against them in a clear, popular, and condensed manner, illustrat- 

 ing the paper with 88 figures, none of which are original. 



Annual Report of the New Jersey Entomologist.— Pages 343 to 426 of 

 the Annual Report of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 1891, is occupied by the Report of the Entomologist. In the general 

 review of the season it is noted that much damage was done by the 

 Melon Plant-louse, the Corn Bill-bug, and the Pear Midge. The bulk 

 of the report is taken up with articles which have already appeared in 

 bulletins and which have been duly noticed in these pages. 



SOME INTERRELATIONS OF PLANTS AND INSECTS.* 

 By C. V. Riley, Ph. D. 



It is my purpose tonight to present some phases of the curious inter- 

 relations between i)lants and insects. In doing this I shall not have 

 time to deal with the remarkable series of results that have followed 

 the more careful and accurate investigations of the so-called insectivo- 

 rous or carnivorous plants, and which have shown that these plants are 

 not only possessed of the power of movement depending upon nerve 

 stimuli, that may be likened in almost every respect to the automatic 

 movements of animals, but that they actually possess digestive jiowers 

 and properties which, chemically and functionally, are the same as 

 those by which animals digest their food. It is my desire rather to call 

 your attention to certain phases of plant fertilization by insects. I 

 need not tell the members of this society that the old idea that flowers 

 are endowed with beauty and fragrance for our particular ])leasure has 

 been effectually set aside and that these attributes have come to be 

 looked upon in their true light, as essential to the plant's existence 

 and i^erpetuation 5 that, in other words, color, form, odor, secretions, 

 and the general structure of flowers all have reference to insects. Nor 

 need I dilate on the need of cross-fertilization in plants generally or the 

 modification which insect poUenizers have undergone as a consequence 



* Read before the Biological Society of Washington, April 2, 1892. 



