Botany and Zoology. 163 
portion of visitors with long proboscis increases, bees, flies and 
butterflies; 2. Conversely it is found that the shorter the pro- 
boscis of an insect the more it visits flowers with free or little 
concealed nectar; the longer the proboscis the more it prefers 
flowers with deep-seated nectaries. And insects specially adapted 
to flowers of a particular form mainly visit these flowers only. 
3. Short-lipped insects prefer light-colored blossoms (white and 
yellow) ;: those with long proboscis, not in, need of much food, 
prefer deep colors (red, blue, violet); but those which require 
more nourishment are not so particular as to color. 
The question which Loew asked was, whether these conclusions 
hold good of foreign plants placed before the insects of a certain 
locality. On the whole, they were corroborated by his very 
extensive observations in the Berlin Garden. But the selection 
of foreign plants by the bee tribe was often different from that of 
indigenous plants. For example, among the fitting S. European 
and Oriental flowers presented to them in the garden, bees and 
humble bees greatly preferred deep-colored flowers; while among 
the American plants the lighter-colored Composite were preferred, 
probably because the number of the yellow-flowered Compositze 
was so greatly in excess of the proper bee-adapted flowers. More- 
over, some nearly related genera of the bee-tribe, and with pro- 
bosces of the same length, differed greatly in their selection of 
flowers; indeed, in most Apide the selection of flowers was evi- 
dently much influenced and even determined by some other factor 
than the mere length of the proboscis. From such facts Loew is 
led to believe that Miiller’s theory of the origination of long- 
beaked Apide from the short-beaked, in a direct line through 
natural selection pari passu with corresponding change in flowers, 
is not borne out. Miler had concluded that Composite-flowers 
were a sort of common feeding-ground of various classes of 
insects; and the way in which bees and other indigenous insects 
shifted their preferences to foreign Composite in the Berlin garden 
confirmed this. Finally, Loew proposes a more simple classifica- 
tion than Miiller’s of the stages or adaptation of insects to flowers, 
based upon morphological and biological characters, quite irre- 
spective of theories of descent, rightly keeping the latter in abey- 
ance until the facts are determined by direct observations. A. G. 
2. Mrnor Boranican Norrs.— Under the patronage of the 
Bentham Trustees, volumes xvi and xvu, of Hookers Icones 
Plantarum, have beer simultaneously in press during the past 
year. The two parts of the sixteenth volume, wholly phaneroga- 
mous, have already been noticed. Of vol. xvil, which is wholly 
devoted to Ferns under the editorship of Mr. Baker, three 
parts have appeared. One of them gives a figure of a new North 
American Fern, the Asplenium Glenniei of Baker (Athyrium 
gracile of Fournier), a Mexican species, which Mr. and Mrs. 
Lemmon collected in the mountains of 8. Arizona. 
Baron von Miiller, Government Botanist for Victoria, Aus- 
tralia, has just brought out, under official auspices, his Deserip- 
