A NEW ZEALAND 

 NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



Chapter I. November. 



I. 



IT is a lovely spring morning with a quiet balmy feeling 

 in the air, and all nature seems refreshed with the 

 showers which fell during the night. It is too fine to 

 stay indoors, and there is much to admire and enjoy in 

 the garden. The spring flowers have been so charming, 

 even though the October gales have sadly knocked them 

 about of late. Primroses and all their allies have flowered 

 very profusely. What an interesting device these flowers 

 have to bring about cross-fertilisation ! the " pin-eyed " 

 forms having the button-like stigma projecting from the 

 throat of the corolla on the top of a long style and 

 the stamens placed halfway down the tube, while the 

 thrum-eyed ones have the anthers at the throat and 

 the stigma halfway down the tube on a short style. In 

 Europe, where these flowers are native, they are visited 

 by various kinds of insects, including species of humble- 

 bees, which carry the pollen from the short-stamened to 

 the short-styled, and from the long-stamened to the long- 

 styled flowers. In this country these flowers never used 

 to be fertilised naturally till humble-bees were introduced. 

 Now they seed quite freely, and the flower beds if in a 

 damp aspect and not hoed too rashly will fill with seedling 

 primroses. It ought to be possible now to acclimatise 

 these flowers in suitable localities, provided they are 

 A 



