5 66 
Notes. [September, 
According to M. Larbaletrier Cecidomyia tritici, a Dipterous 
insedt belonging to the Nemoceridas, destroyed, in 1855, 48 per 
cent of the wheat crop in several departments of the east of 
France, whilst in 1846 it destroyed more than two million hecto- 
litres of wheat in Belgium, thus occasioning a loss of 40 million 
francs. 
M. A. Vollant (“ Cosmos les Mondes ”) produces the effedts of 
grafting by a simple transfusion of the sap of the desired variety 
of fruit tree into a suitable stock. He gives his process the very 
ill-chosen name of “vaccination of plants.” 
According to the same journal the wines of the Gironde 
hold in solution a mean quantity of 63 milligrammes of iron 
per litre, a proportion surpassing that found in most ferruginous 
waters. 
M. Ch. Musset (“ Comptes Rendus ”), after four years’ ob- 
servation at Grenoble, fully confirms the views of Darwin on the 
part played by insedts in the fecundation of flowers. He testi- 
fies, in opposition to M. E. Heckel, that all orders of insedts are 
represented up to 2300 metres above the sea-level ; that at 
greater heights the Lepidoptera, Diptera, and certain Hy- 
menoptera are more numerous than the other orders ; that the 
number of genera, species, and individuals of nedtarophilous 
insedts is proportional to that of flowers, and is sometimes 
incalculable ; the hours of the opening and sleep of nydtitropic 
flowers (much more numerous than is commonly imagined) are 
synchronous with those of insedts. Flowers and insedts never 
fail each other, and hence M. Heckel’s objection to cross- 
fertilisation, based on the alleged absence or rarity of insedts on 
the flowering mountain-tops, must fall to the ground. 
M. Ch. Musset has observed that dew is one of the predomi- 
nating causes of the temporary disappearance of insedts. (This 
explains the ill success which attends “ sugaring ” for moths on 
moonlight nights). 
Mr. Norman N. Mason (“ American Naturalist ”) confirms the 
statements concerning the carnivorous character of the honey- 
bee ( Apis mellifica). Dr. Fritz Muller has noticed several Bra- 
zilian honey-bees ( Mellipona varians, M„ ceyrepie, M. gurupu, and 
Trigona pinguicosa) licking the juice of fresh meat. 
P. S. Legouis (“Comptes Rendus”) maintains that the 
Cjclostoma, &c., have a distindt pancreatic apparatus like that of 
the Teleostei. 
The Abbe Giotti Ulivi (“American Naturalist”), after pro- 
longed observations on hive-bees, maintains that queens are 
usually fertilised inside the hive ; that they are fertilised several 
times ; that the drones are not mutilated in the adt of copula- 
tion ; that every egg that hatches into a male or female has 
