358 
Mr. Lawrence Bruner’s Report as Entomologist to the State Board of Agri- 
culture in Nebraska.— Mr. Bruner’s reprint of his report from the Annual 
Report of the State Board of Agriculture for 1891 has been received. 
He devotes the seventy pages allotted to him to a consideration of the 
insects which affect Corn. He shows that the corn crop is the most 
important of the staples of Nebraska and that probably one-seventh of 
the crop isannually destroyed by insects. He lists something over one 
hundred species, and describes their habits and the remedies to be 
used against them in a clear, popular, and condensed manner, illustrat- 
ing the paper with 88 figures, none of which are original. 
Annual Report of the New Jersey Entomologist—Pages 543 to 426 of 
the Annual Report of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, 
1891, is occupied by the Report of the Entomologist. In the general 
review of the season it is noted that much damage was done by the 
Melon Plant-louse, the Corn Bill-bug, and the Pear Midge. The bulk 
of the report is taken up with articles which have already appeared in 
bulletins and which have been duly noticed in these pages. 
SOME INTERRELATIONS OF PLANTS AND INSECTS.* 
By C. V. Ritry, Ph. D. 
It is my purpose tonight to present some phases of the curious inter- 
relations between plants and insects. In doing this I shall not have 
time to deal with the remarkable series of results that have followed 
the more careful and accurate investigations of the so-called insectivo- 
rous or carnivorous plants, and which have shown that these plants are 
not only possessed of the power of movement depending upon nerve 
stimuli, that may be likened in almost every respect to the automatic 
movements of animals, but that they actually possess digestive powers 
and properties which, chemically and functionally, are the same as 
those by which animals digest their food. It is my desire rather to eall 
your attention to certain phases of plant fertilization by insects. I 
need not tell the members of this society that the old idea that flowers 
are endowed with beauty and fragrance for our particular pleasure has 
been effectually set aside and that these attributes have come to be 
looked upon in their true light. as essential to the plant’s existence 
and perpetuation; that, in other words, color, form. odor, secretions, 
and the general structure of flowers all have reference to insects. Nor 
need I dilate on the need of cross-fertilization in plants generally or the 
modification which insect pollenizers have undergone as a consequence 
~ Read betore the Biological Society of Washington, April 2, 1892. 
