TIBPOET OF THE CHISWICK BOAED OF DIRECTION. 
33 
a perfectly unaltered state. The yellow pollen-graimles frequently 
impart their colour to the abdomen, more especially to its side.^ 
and under-surfaoe. After the fly has swallowed a granule or mass 
of granules, it occupies several seconds in clearing its head from the 
granules, threads, and other impurities which still adhere to it — a 
process performed by its first pair of legs in a manner that strongly 
reminds one of a cat washing its face with its fore-paws." Mr. 
Newman even goes so far as to suggest — though he does not assert 
this to be the case — whether these three species of Eridalis are 
not entirely destitute of the power usually attributed to them of 
imbibing the liquid honey of flowers. At all events, in a series of 
observations extending over two autumns, he has never detected 
them in the act. 
The utility of this affection for pollen on the part of these very 
common and widely-distributed species of Diptera, in promoting 
the cross-fertilisation rather than the self-fertilisation of the flowers 
they frequent, is sufficiently obvious. 
IX. Keport of the Chiswick Board of Direction. 
[Presented February 11, 1873.] 
During the past season the work at Chiswick has been mainly 
directed towards the perfecting of the arrangements attendant on 
the alterations in the garden in the previous year. It was then 
reported that in consequence of timely, though not unusually 
copious rainfall, the valuable collection of fruit-trees had been re- 
moved with scarcely any loss. The late gloomy and rainy season 
was peculiarly favourable to the complete establishment of the 
transplanted stock, the deficiency of fruit being highly conducive 
to the same end. 
Though there has been little opportunity for what may be more 
strictly considered as scientific investigation, important trials in a 
horticultural point of view have been carried on with respect to 
various objects of cultivation. Those on the different varieties of 
Kales and Peas were made under unusually favourable conditions. 
Both were very carefully examined, the latter including upwards 
of 200 reputed varieties, by the Fruit Committee, and the results in 
either case are recorded in the numbers of the Society's Journal 
recently published. In order that no dissatisfaction might arise as to 
VOL. IV. 
D 
