335 
Darwin’s experiments in this direction are especially valuable. He protected 100 
heads of Red Clover (Trifolium pratense) with netting in such a way as to prevent 
the visits of insects and found that not a single seed was produced, although 100 
heads visited by bees at the same time produced 2,720 seeds. Striking results were 
also obtained with other clovers. Five or six times as many seeds of Scarlet Italian 
Clover (Trifolium incarnatum) were produced when bees were allowed to visit the 
blossoms as were obtained from the same number of blossoms covered with netting, 
Cross-fertilized plants of common White Clover (Trifolium repens) yielded, in Dar- 
win’s experiments, ten times as many seeds as plants fertilized with their own pollen. 
In another experiment 20 unprotected heads of White Clover gave 2,290 seeds, while 
20 heads from which insects were excluded gave but a single seed and that im- 
pertect. 
As Bumble-bees visit flowers of Red Clover more than do other bees, and the size 
and weight of their bodies is such as to render them capable of effecting the fertili- 
zation of the flowers, it is safe to say that they are the chief agents. In attempting 
to secure the honey located in the nectary at the base of the stamens, the Bumble- 
bee presses the keel or carina and the ale (wings) of the flower downward, and the. 
style being curved, with the terminal stigma rising above the surrounding anthers, 
the stigma strikes the underside of the bee’s head and receives the pollen brought. 
from another clover blossom, and the stamens, which are shorter than the pistil, only 
touch the bee after fertilization has been accomplished and yield their pollen for the 
next fertilization. 
The common Bumble-bee was imported by the British Government into Australia 
and New Zealand about the year 1884 for the express purpose of effecting the fertili- 
zation of Red Clover in those colonies. After various trials the experiment was suc- 
cessful. The hibernating queens, for which one shilling (24 cents) each was paid, 
were packed in moss, placed in the refrigerator of the steamer, and were gradually 
revived upon approaching their destination and then set free. Official reports con- 
cerning the results of the experiment are not at hand, but numerous reports in the 
press have shown that the experiment was successful; that the bees have multiplied 
with wonderful rapidity and spread over the whole of the cultivated portion of the. 
country in these comparatively few years, and that abundance of seed is produced as 
a result, where before Australia and New Zealand had te import their Red Clover 
seed. 
Chapter XVI in volume I of Cheshire’s ‘‘ Bees and Bee-keeping,” entitled ‘‘ Bees as 
Fertilizers,” would doubtless give you information which you could use in handling 
this question.—[March 12, 1892. ] 
GENERAL NOTES. 
INSECTS ON THE SURFACE OF SNOW. 
We have seen during the winter a number of newspaper items stat- 
ing that in different parts of the country insects of one sort or another 
had been observed in great numbers upon the surface of snow. In no 
case in the newspaper accounts were the particular species determined 
scientifically. 
On February 11 Mr. John Burroughs, of West Park, N. Y., sentusa 
number of half-grown larve of Leucania phragmatidicola, which were 
found on snow in the fields and along the roads, usually not far from 
trees. This was immediately after a snowstorm. A week later, on 
