30 
IlOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Society will, for the future, guard against the continuance of the 
practice. 
Dracocna albicans. 
Dracaena limhata. 
amabilis. 
longifolia. 
» ? 
angusta. 
1 J 
Macleayi. 
1 ? 
Chelsoni. 
Mooreana. 
Cooperi. 
)> 
nigrescens. 
' > 
concinna. 
»5 
nigrorubra. 
' 5 
Dennisonii. 
)> 
magnifica. 
) ? 
gracilis. 
? » 
pendula. 
J 1 
grandis. 
) ' 
pulchella. 
)> 
Guilfoylei. 
>> 
Wisemanni. 
VIII. Do Flies Eat Pollen? Ey Alfred W. Eennett, M.A., 
B.Sc, F.L.S. 
[Read December 7, 1872.] 
At a meeting of the Scientific Committee during the past season, 
the question was raised whether Diptera eat pollen, or whether they 
merely carry it away accidentally when searching for the nectar 
which is their ordinary food. Having ventured to express the 
opinion that certain Diptera, and especially some of the Syrphidae, 
do feed upon pollen, I found this was not the view of the entomo- 
logists present, who expressed disbelief that insects provided only 
with a proboscis and no mandibles could obtain any food more solid 
than the juices of plants. In order to decide the question I this 
autumn captured a number of the Syrphidae which on a sunny day 
swarm on the Compositae bed at the Ttegent's Park Botanic Gardens, 
and subjected the contents of their abdomen to examination under 
the microscope, when I found them in several instances to contain 
considerable quantities, and in one to be absolutely loaded with 
pollen-grains, which were easily recognised as belonging to some 
Compositous plant, probably some one of the species of Aster then 
abundantly in flower. The flies examined belonged to two species 
of very difi'erent size — Eristalis tenax and Syrphus clypeata. 
The exact mode in which flies use their proboscis in feeding upon 
pollen — although apparently unknown to English entomologists — 
has in fact been accurately described by Dr. Erm. Miiller, of 
Lippstadt, in a discourse delivered to the General Assembly of the 
