rri 



526 



Journal of the Asiatic Society of bengal. [July, 1907 



like the ants ; and they funcfeion from the time when the bud is 



ripe, keeping the ant patrol on the 



grown 



plants all the time. Probably the attracted ants and wasps protect 



measure 



It seems to me th at 



May 



June, when everything Js dry and the thermometer in the shade is 

 above 100*^, insects in Behar— especially south of the river — sire 

 somewhat pressed for water or liquid food ; and that consequently 

 the little honey that the cotton offers is more largely sought than 

 it would be perhaps at another season. Certain it is that a wet 

 surface at this time has a great attraction. The eager seeking 

 in the flowers for honey of Elis, Salius, Ceratina^ Halictus^ etc., is 

 a sign of it : and the equally eager seeking for the glands by flying 

 insects which do not see them, but find them in running over the 

 foliage is another sign. Such insects are particularly Sjphex and 

 S alius flavus, and to some extent Apis florea^ 



minute. 



flo 



Before closing my note reference may be made to work done 

 on American and Egyptian cottons. It is tiot ample; but it 

 indicates that in the United States and lower Egypt their flowers 

 attract cross-pollinating insects. 



The pollination of a species of cotton hns been studied in the 

 United States by Trelease (here quoted from Loew in Knuth's 

 Handbuch d. Bliitenbiologie, iii., pt. 1, 1904, p. 483). The 

 flowers last two days, wliich is three or four times as many hours 

 as last the cotton flowers of the Behar May crop. Like the Indian 

 cottons they are self fertile. They were visited by bees, wasps^ 

 a beetle and a butterfly : many other insects go to the extrafloral 

 nectaries.' 



W. L. Balls (Year-book of the K^edevial Agricultural 

 Society for 1905, Cairo, 1906, p. 205) says that natural hybri- 

 disation of cotton takes place in Egypt to some extent, but he has 

 given no account of insect- pollination. He notices, however, some 

 tendency to imperfect anthers in individual flowers which lays 

 them the more open to cross-pollination. 



^ ■ ■ ■ - ^ 



1 Loew calls it Gossypitnn herhaceuw, bat in the use of that name he i& 



apparently wrong. 



* / 



X ^ 



J 



