Notes on the Pollination of some South African Cycads. 261 
never actually seen them flying, although at times there must have been 
dozens of them crawling all over the room in which I worked. As the 
point seemed of some importance, I tried dropping them suddenly from a 
height off the blade of a knife. After many hours of this diverting 
occupation I at last succeeded ia making two or three spread their 
wings and entrust themselves to the air. (Need I add that the very next 
evening many of them flew round and round the room sua siiionte.) 
Two points were then established — that Phlgeophagus could make a 
flight of some yards, and that pollen could adhere to its body for at least 
60 hours. 
At the time of pollination the female cone is 14 inches high with no 
visible peduncle. The colouring is an indefinite green with a suspicion of 
yellow, and could not be described as conspicuous. Nor is there any 
perceptible odour. Although I have examined over a score of female cones 
during the time the pollen is being shed and have had three under daily 
observation in my own gardea I have never noted any separation of the 
sporophylls. Although I still feel bound to believe that it must occur, yet 
it must be only to a very limited extent — a condition which, while not 
altogether excluding anemophily in this species, certainly renders it much 
less probable ; for the exposed parts of the sporophylls stand almost 
horizontally and do not overlap, so that unless the separation were very 
marked only wind-borne pollen coming horizontally could effect an 
entrance, and only those ovules on the side of the prevailing winds would 
be fertilised. But in all the cones which I have worked through, even 
from plants growing on the outside of a group, embryos had been formed 
in uniform proportions on all sides. 
Long before I was aware that Phlaeophagus visited the staminate cones 
of E. Altensteinii I knew that it was hardly possible to find a mature 
ovulate cone in which a large percentage of the ovules were not parasitised 
by the same insect, but was wholly unaware when the eggs were deposited. 
Miss Pegler's observations on E. villosus, recorded by Professor Pearson, 
suggested a line of inquiry when once I had proof that the male cones of 
E. Altensteinii were also visited by these weevils. 
A visit paid on the third day to the two remaining male cones— found in 
April — showed that although there was still some fresh pollen the weevils 
had disappeared. Some thirty paces lower down the valley there was a 
female plant with two cones. An external examination of these revealed no 
sign of any insect, and as the sporophylls showed no sign of separation I 
concluded that wherever the insects had gone it was not to these. I was 
therefore much surprised, on cutting open one of the cones, to find scores 
of weevils present. Once past the barrier formed by the peltate portion of 
the sporophylls it was easy to see that their movements were compara- 
tively unrestricted, especially near the cone axis. A lens examination 
