366 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXIV. 
might be an important agent in pollen distribution; but I have 
not seen one pass from flower to flower directly and am in- 
clined to think it rarely does so. It is little disposed to flight 
and is much more at home clambering among the thyrsoid 
clusters of Rhus and Ceanothus. Furthermore, on reaching an 
Iris flower it is habitually deceived as to the point of entrance 
and tries for some time to get in at its center, between the 
branches of the cleft style. After clambering in and out of 
the central cleft repeatedly the proper entrance is at length 
stumbled upon. It cannot, of course, reach the nectar, and 
the supply of pollen on the floor of the passageway is very 
meager. If seeking pollen it might, if it had wit enough, get 
plenty of it by entering the other side up. 
Mononychus vulpeculus Fabr. (the Flag Weevil), — This 
beetle is one of the most characteristic insects affecting the 
blue flag, and one of the commonest. It is often found in the 
passageway to the nectary, picking up stray pollen grains, 
other grains sticking to its rostrum and feet and to the scaly 
ventral surface of its body, but not to its smooth back. What 
has been said of the preceding species, as to its part in pollen 
transference, and as to its activities in and about the flower, 
will apply almost literally to this species. 
Desiring to learn whether they would transfer pollen prop- 
erly, and finding too few entering the flowers of their own 
accord, I picked up a number of them with forceps and placed 
them in various positions on the flowers. They all, wherever 
placed, ran rapidly into the central cleft of the style, seeking to 
enter there, climbed out, and returned to try it again repeat- 
edly. A few then climbed out at the sides between two sepals 
and crawled through the space between sepal and style into the 
entrance way, without touching either stigma or anther. A 
far larger number came upon the proper entrance. Most of 
these latter climbed over the tip of the style and down its outer 
tace, entering back downward, traversing both stigma and 
anther. A lesser number wandered out upon the tip of the 
sepal and returned to enter right side up; owing to the lack 
of pollen on their smooth backs, these would effect nothing, 
though they touched the stigma. 
