445 
It is not common, so far as we have seen, to find any fertilizing 
insect at work, the only ones seen being a common species of Musca 
with a dark green body and red head which has been seen in the even- 
ing licking honey from the petals. It is the same insect which plays 
the part of fertilizer of the oaks, Kurrimia , Sindora and other green 
flowered strongly scented trees. It has not been seen at the flowers 
of Hevea in such immense abundance as on the indigenous trees 
mentioned where the roar of their wings can be heard from the foot 
of the trees, and the ground in the vicinity is often thick with them. 
It is probably, however, the fertilizer of Hevea. The larva of the 
insect apparently feeds on dung, and heavy falls of rain, especially 
in a place so liable to floods as the spot under observation, may, 
perhaps, destroy it. We have also seen a brown pollen-eating fly, 
one of the Syrphidee, at the flowers. 
The heavy storms may affect the fruiting also by destroying the 
pollen but we are more inclined to think that they simply knock off 
the male flowers before the pollination of the female is effected. The 
result anyway is a poor fruit crop, but while a fruit crop may be 
heavy or light as a result of successful or imperfect fertilization it 
appears from the record of one decade that a large Spring crop is 
more in response to a previous poor Autumn one. or complete failure 
rather than a permanent or regularly defined foliar periodicity. At 
the same time it will be evident, if it is allowed that there is one 
time of the year better for tapping than another, that the returns of 
latex from the same trees or groups of trees would be of varying 
value and quantity according to the physiological state or phase 
of the tree at that time. 
It is frequently contended that Hevea braziliensis in Malaya differs 
in certain characteristics from the tree in the Amazons, where it is 
indigenous and that it is herein a state of transition or modification. 
We do not, however, consider that there are any signs of this. 
Reports from Brazil as to the flowering and fruiting seasons do 
not quite agree with what occurs here, but this is no doubt due to 
the difficulty of making accurate observations in mixed forests and 
also to the fact that at one season of the year the whole country is 
flooded, so that it must be impossible then to make satisfactory 
observations, particularly when it is remembered that Rubber trees 
in Brazil are estimated at an average of one to the acre. 
In Mr. Consul Temple's account (quoted Bulletin I p.2) it is 
stated that “ The tree flowers in January, the seeds are ripe and begin 
to fall in March in the case of old trees and in May in the case of 
young trees . " This, we know, is not substantially correct; March 
seeds would be the result of September flowers, and January and 
February flowers would produce seeds in August and Septem- 
ber, at a time when, according to all. observers, the country is 
flooded and thus this fruiting would escape observation. According 
to ULE, however ( Kautschuk-gewinnung und Kautschuk-handel in 
Amazonen-strome), the flowering season is July and August, the 
driest months, and most of the fruits fall in January and February, 
the rainy season being from October to March. 
7 III! 
