62 



following: were' observed: Lachnosterna gibbosa, Tetratopus 

 femomtus. My friend, Mr. Robertson, records several more. 

 The honey bee can, no doubt, pollinate red clover, as they 



"often collect poUenJ I have taken an interest in bees for 

 many years and have given some attention to red clover and 

 honey bees. The following paragraph, from a paper publish- 

 ed in 1888, may be of interest: "In the summer of 1883, in 

 the vicinity o£ La Crosse, Wisconsin, I noticed large num- 

 bers of honey bees on the flowers of red clover. In many 

 cases they were actively collecting pollen, but in some cases 

 honey through perforations in the corolla, made by some 

 other insects." Hermann Mueller says the honey bee "usual- 

 ly visits the red clover only for its honey, which its probos- 

 cis is not able to reach in a legitimate manner— yet now and 

 then I have seen hundreds of huney bees on a patch of red 



_clover, all busy collecting pollen." Here at Ames I have 

 seen red clover visited by several butterflies, especially the 

 largo, red butterfly {Lanais archippus), cabbage butterfly 

 {Pieris rapae) , yellow butterfly (Coleus philodice) , also C. eury- 

 theme and a fly iBombylius). Red clover is especially adapt- 

 ed to larger bees] but Hermann Mueller of Germany, and 

 Robertson, of Carlinville, Illinois, records a large num- 

 ber of butterfly visitors. Thirteen out of twenty visitors be- 

 longing to the butterfly family were observed in Illinois. 



_ There is no question but that they do occasionally pollinate 



_red clover and effect cross fertilization .J Robertson writes. 

 "Bumble bees depress the keel so that their heads and probo- 



"^ddes are well dusted with pollen, but butterflies can insert 

 their thin tongues without depressing the keel, and even if 

 they get a little pollen on their thin proboscidee, it is apt to 

 be wiped off by the closely approximated tips of the petals, 

 ■which close the mouth of the flower.") 



