246 Transactions of the American Institute. 



the morality of hop-growing, alleging that the business tends 

 iudirectly to the spread of intemperance. I am, and have been for 

 several years, a producer of this important staple, and must con- 

 fess that any question as to its improper tendencies never occurred 

 to my mind. I believe that the use of fermented and distilled 

 liquors is a preventive of drunkenness, by supplying the place of 

 alcoholic stimulants. Facts sustain this view. The German popu- 

 lation are extensive consumers of beer, using it as an article of diet 

 daily. They are temperate not only, but healthy. The lower 

 classes in Eng^land are large consumers of the different varieties of 

 ale, and intemperance is by no means common among them. Malt 

 liquors are sedative, and tonic in their effects, and hence beneficial, 

 especially to persons of weak or irritable nerves. Your corre- 

 spondent might with better propriety have found an argument 

 against growing Avheat or rye, upon the fact that these cereals are 

 manufactured into whiskey, the drunkard's favorite beverage. Hop- 

 growing is a preventive of intemperance, and not accessory to it. 



KLNGBERDS EATING BEES. 



The Secretaiy had detected Idngbirds in eating his honey bees 

 in Brooklyn; two of them had been shot by a neighbor, and he 

 had brought them to the Club for examination, where they were 

 dissected, and bees found in their crops. 



Mr. John Crane. — I examined this matter long ago, and found 

 that the kingbird eats nothing but the drones. 



Dr. Isaac Trimble examined them with a glass, and pronounced 

 them to be drones, and not a worker among them. He spoke of 

 the wickedness of killing such birds. 



OECHIDS OR AIR PLANTS. 



Dr. H. G. Lungren, Volusia, Florida. — I take the liberty of 

 sending you a few specimens of one of our greatest curiosities — 

 the Florida air plant. I think you will agree with me in saying 

 they ai"e quite unique. The plant is considered a great curiosity 

 with us. How much more so will it prove to you? The plants I 

 send you are very small, being young plants. When old, they are 

 often five or six feet in height. I will try and give you some of 

 its peculiarities, but cannot give the botanical name, for all works 

 on Southern botany that I have, fail to describe it. This plant 

 grows freely in all situations — adhering to the bark of the oak, 

 cypress, cedar and maple. It is occasionally, but rai'ely, found 



