1I2 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
with many stigmas.” At another time, “a Sesza* sucked 
nectar from every open flower on one spike: when caught, it 
had about twenty pollinia attached to it; both moths had pro- 
boscides so encumbered with the pollinia that it was impossible 
for them to be coiled up between the palpi. The shortness of 
the time occupied in the depression of pollinia in this species 
and the time that the insects remained at one plant would 
seem to indicate that the upper flowers on the spike, at least, 
were fertilized by pollen from the same plant. I have fre- 
quently seen the orthopterous insect Phaneroptera curvicauda, 
Serv., feeding upon the flowers of this Orchid, but could not 
find that they ever effected its fertilization, although pollinia 
were several times found attached to their feet.” 
The author once examined four spikes of H. psycodes to see 
what their attendant insects had accomplished. The plants 
grew near together in a damp hollow by a shady roadside. 
Omitting 45 that had set their seed, there were in all 182 
open flowers (one spike bore 64 blossoms, two of them double, 
and the plant was twenty-three inches high), and of this 
number, 69, mostly on the upper parts of the spikes, had had 
no pollen removed; 49 had lost both pollen-masses; 61 had 
lost one apiece, 34 removed from the right hand, 27 from 
the left. In the case of one spike where but 8 flowers had lost 
both pollen-masses and 19 had lost but one, only 5 had been 
taken from the left hand. I found one pollinium sticking by 
its disc to a stigma, and one I removed myself fell, striking 
the stigma, not with its heavy end as one would suppose, but 
with its disc. I questioned whether the pollinia might not be 
occasionally shaken out of their cells by hard winds, but this 
was improbable; and in Miiller’s work I have since found an 
explanation. Speaking of humble-bees caught with pollen- 
masses on them, he says, “we frequently observed 
that when the pollen-masses bent forward the bee was able 
naa 
* S. adiffines, Bowsd, 
