Gleanings. 23 1 
across the extensive waste. His flight is extremely bold, as he 
pitches in wide irregular zig-zags through the air, with a velocity 
scarcely to be surpassed. The meat for delicacy of flavor is not 
excelled by any of the family. — ^^m. Jour. Science. 
On the 'production of Vanilla in Europe. — Gardner's Travels 
in the interior of Brazil — Jamieson's Journal: 
" In marshy bushy places on this journey, I saw many plants of 
the Vanilla planifolia, seldom beating flowers, and more rarely 
producing fruit. It has now been satisfactorily determined, that 
this is the species from which the true Vanilla of commerce is 
procured. In Mexico it is extensively cultivated for the sake of 
its fruit, which it yields abundantly; while the plants which have 
been introduced into the East Indies, and the hot houses of Eu- 
rope, though they have frequently produced flowers, have very 
seldom perfected their fruit. Dr. Morren of Liege, was the first 
to study attentively the natural history of this plant, and to prove 
experimentally that the fruit of the Vanilla may be as freely 
produced in our hot houses as it is in Mexico. He has discovered 
that from some peculiarities in the reproductive organs of this 
plant, artificial fecundation is required. In the year 1836, a plant 
in one of the hot houses in the botanic garden at Liege, produced 
fifty-four flowers, which, having been artificially fecundated ex- 
hited the same number of pods, quite equal to those imported 
from Mexico; and in 1847, a fresh crop of about a hundred pods 
was obtained upon another plant by the same method. He attri- 
butes the fecundation of the plant in Mexico to the action of some 
insect which frequents the flower; and hence accounts for the 
non-production of fruit in those plants which have been removed 
to other countries. There can be no doubt that this plant is as 
perfectly indigenous to Brazil as it is to Mexico: but it is no less 
certain that its fruit is seldom matured. Is this also to be attri- 
buted to the absence of the means by which nature is supposed to 
effect fecundation in Me?(:ico? This is a subject which, as Prof. 
Morren justly observes, w^eil deserves attention in a commercial 
point of view, since his experiments go to prove that in all in- 
tertropical countries, Vanilla might be cultivated, and a great 
abundance of fruit obtained." 
Etherization of Bees. — Mr. Hilton, of London, author of the 
" Practical Bee Keeper," at the suggestion of a French gentle- 
man, has performed several experiments in the application of ether 
to bee hives, in order to reduce the bees to a state of stupefaction 
whilst the comb and honey were removed. The apparatus used 
was very simple. " The ether was placed in a glass vessel, to 
which a flexible tube was affixed, which was introduced beneath 
