2i6 ffijjc Barton's Stotj?. 



author's own marvelous researches and observa- 

 tions, includes references to everything of im- 

 portance which had been written upon the sub- 

 ject prior to its publication. Of the mass of 

 information here presented, the enumeration of 

 the various flower species, with their throngs of 

 visitors, is one of the most noteworthy features. 



It will prove interesting, perhaps, to recapitu- 

 late briefly the forms and character of insectiv- 

 orous life which serve to carry on the process 

 of cross- fertilization. "A review of the mode 

 of life of insects which visit flowers, and of 

 the families to which they belong," says Prof. 

 Miiller, " shows continuous gradations from 

 those which never visit flowers to those which 

 seek them as a secondary matter, and finally to 

 those which entirely depend upon them. This 

 shows clearly that insects which originally did 

 not avail themselves of flowers gradually became 

 more and more habituated to a floral diet, and 

 only became correspondingly modified in struct- 

 ure when they had learned to depend upon such 

 a diet exclusively." 



In the scale of importance as fertilizers, the 

 order of Hymenoptera, to which belong the 

 bees, takes the highest rank, its members in the 

 perfect state being entirely dependent on flow- 

 ers. Bees, which confine themselves exclusively 



