Retrospective Criticism. 14,9 



Le'on le Clerc pear, are both very valuable acquisitions, and should be included 

 in every selection. — Id. 



Art. IV. Retrospective Criticism. 



Erratum. —In page 94. line 5., for " (slate stoves)," read " (I hate stoves)." 



Raising Cacti from Seeds taken from dead Specimens. — Seeing in the 

 Gardener's Magazine, p. 29., an extract from M'Intosh's Green-house, Hot- 

 house, and Stove, on Cacti raised from seed derived from dead plants, allow 

 me to state that, from a small purchase at the same sale as that referred to 

 in your review, I succeeded in obtaining seed from several species of Mam- 

 millaria and Echinocactus, and thus procured a considerable quantity of 

 young plants. After the old plants were potted and excited, their first effort 

 was, apparently, to throw up their seed-vessels, especially the mammillarias, 

 the berries showing very slight traces on their summits of the withered floral 

 organs ; it thus seeming that they flowered previously to their being packed, 

 or during their voyage. From some dead Echinocacti, I also procured seed 

 by pulling them to pieces, and thus preserved those species. 



Is it not a mistake, to say that these plants will throw up their seed-vessels, 

 " even long after they are dead ?" Is it not rather the result of the impreg- 

 nated embryos drawing a sufficient supply of elaborated sap from the wither- 

 ing plant to perfect their seeds ? I well know that several plants belonging 

 to Tidipacece, and other related orders, will, while drying for the herbarium, 

 swell their capsules to nearly their full size ; and I once had a specimen of 

 Calochortus luteus form bulbs on the edges of the compressed flower-stalk 

 (not in the axils of the leaves) while drying, from which bulbs I raised 

 plants. These instances will, perhaps, assist to explain the throwing up of 

 their seed-vessels by the drying Cacti. — A young Subscriber. Jan. 18. 1839. 



Calling of the Queen Bees, S^c. (p. 25.) — I have just been perusing Mr. 

 Wighton's article on the "calling of the queen bees before swarming;" and, 

 although I have had the management of bees for upwards of twelve years, I 

 have never been able to see what was going on at the time this calling took 

 place but once; and, as it may be interesting to Mr. Wighton, as well as 

 others, I will relate, as nearly as my memory will enable me, what I then ob- 

 served. As our bees are not very near the house, it is my practice, in swarming 

 time (when I have any reason to expect a swarm), to walk to the apiary 

 about 10 o'clock, to ascertain if any hives are getting very busy, in which case 

 I place some one to work near the spot. Going one morning to a hive I ex- 

 pected to send forth a swarm, I was amused at the sound of " peep, peep ;" 

 but not, as Mr. Wighton states, always coming " from certain fixed points." 

 Feeling interested in what might be the result, I continued my observations 

 till the swarm came out, which I think was in about an hour from the time I 

 first heard it; but I think it is probable it had been going on for a considerable 

 time before. This sound of " peep, peep," came from an old queen, whom I 

 could plainly see going from one part of the hive to the other ; running in a 

 hurried manner, as though anxious to escape, and uttering the call in a hoarse 

 kind of way every time she stopped. During the time this was going on, there 

 was, as Mr. Wighton observes, another sound of " peep, peep," of a shriller 

 kind, from a fixed point ; but it v/as in the interior of the hive, and, conse- 

 quently, out of the reach of my observation. As I stated before, this con- 

 tinued about an hour, when the swarm issued forth ; but, whether the queen 

 who ought to have accompanied it was destroyed in the hive, or lost after 

 she came out, I cannot say; but, almost as soon as the bees were out they 

 returned to the parent stock, and never after made an attempt to swarm, 

 neither was there any more confusion in the hive, nor sound of "peep" from 

 cither old or young queens, but all went on as peaceably as though nothing 



