i88 



The Tfish Natmalisf, 



October, 



NOTES, 



BOTANY. 



Nasturtium sylvestre in Co. Down. 



The Narrow -podded Marsh Cress has not been found hitherto in Ireland 

 further north-east than Belleisle, Co. Fermanagh. ]\Ir. S. A. Bennett 

 recognised it this year growing by the gravelly shore and on walls by 

 the River Quoile, near Downpatrick, between the town and the bridge. 

 I have specimens in my herbarium gathered at Hollymount in 

 September, 1898, during an excursion of the Field Club, which I named 

 sylvestre, but Mr. S. A. Stewart, who was one of the party, thought it was 

 only a form of palnstre. I have similar plants gathered near Inch Abbey 

 in 1905, by Rev. C. K. Pooler and myself, and there is no doubt of its being 

 sylvestre, as it corresponds exactly with Enghsh specimens in my collection. 

 It is abundant all along the river Quoile in the Downpatrick neighbourhood, 

 where N. palustre also grows, but was not so abundant this season as the 

 rarer species. 



C. H. Waddell. 



Greyabbey. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Selective Instinct of Bees. 



I am glad to have Mr. ]\Ioffat as a co-worker in those very interesting 

 observations we have been making on this subject, and if his conclusions 

 and mine are rather divergent, at this stage, this seems due to insufficient 

 observation data more than anything else. It is true, as Mr. Moffat states, 

 there are differences, well-marked to a botanist's eye, between Oxalis 

 floribunda and O. valdiviana ; but on the points that would apparently 

 most affect the bee, size of flower, depth of nectary, or supply of nectar 

 and pollen, there is really no difference. 



In North Wexford, about the middle of last August, I had under observa- 

 tion a large roadside clump of Blue Scabious (S. succisa), about a hundred 

 plants or so, at one end of which was a small patch, eight or ten plants, 

 of the white variety of this scabious. There were also a few white flowers 

 scattered throughout the masses of blue ; but I confined my attention to 

 the spot where these white flowers were most thickly massed. The bees at 

 work consisted of the Hive -bee, the humble-bees Bombus terrestris, 

 agroriim, hortorum, and sylvarum (or derhamellus), and a few others of no 

 importance in this matter (Halictus, Colletes, etc.). 



Apis throughout confined its attention to the blue flowers only, an 

 individual occasionally touching for a moment at a white flower, but 

 never collecting from it. During more than an hour I was unable to detect 

 a single Hive -bee working at a white scabious, though many must have 

 made the double flight, to the hive and back, in the interval. The nearest 

 hives of which I had any knowledge were about a mile distant. Bombus 

 was more promiscuous in its favours. I captured a large queen of B. 



