
CORRESPONDENCE. 
Editor of the American Naturalist : 
Mr. Robertson’s criticisms in the American Naturalist for July 
appear to be exceedingly captious and trivial. In my paper on the 
colors of flowers I say of the visitors of Vymph@a advena, “ I have col- 
lected on the flowers in Maine four Diptera, two Coleoptera, and one 
small bee, Za/ictus nelumbonis, which confines its visits to this flower.” 
So far as possible my remarks on the visits of insects to flowers are 
based on numerous observations I have made in the field. The 
above remark is true of this bee, so far as I have collected it, in this 
locality. — 
Again, as to the number of visitors to the Umbelliferz. It is 
certainly true that several species are visited by more than two hun- 
dred insects, while others approach quite closely to this number. 
I still believe that when a more careful and extended study of these 
plants shall have been made, the number of visitors to many species 
will be found to exceed two hundred. The visitors to many umbel- 
lifers have, moreover, never been collected. 
As regards the visits of beetles to dull yellow flowers, it certainly 
never occurred to me that there was anything in my paper which 
could lead any reader to believe that I considered the statement 
as new. I mentioned the later observations of Müller, and also 
those of Loew, Schultz, and Knuth, as well as one of my own, and 
added that it did not appear necessary to carry the illustrations 
further. In the brief reviews of the coloring of the different plant 
families which space renders possible, I am compelled to omit 
many observations both of my own and of others. Mr. Robertson 
tells us that he has also made some observations on this subject, 
and the real animus of his remarks seems to be that he has been 
hurt because no reference was made to these. Mr. Robertson was 
not long ago severely censured by a correspondent of the Canadian 
Entomologist for his loose way of naming supposed new species of 
bees based on single specimens or on trivial characters. Of his 
regard for the rights of others a single illustration will serve. 
Transactions of the Academy of Science, St. Louis, Vol. X, No. 2, P 45 
after describing Andrena viciniformis, which he calls a new species, 
832 
