i 70 Observations on the Primrose and the Cowslip. 
primrose, and eagerly sucking the honey from them. It is interesting 
to note that on one of these days the two Bombylii I then observed 
were the only insects I noticed flying at all, the morning being some¬ 
what cold. There were no bees or other insects on the celandines 
which grew in great profusion near the primroses. I have also 
received details of some very careful -observations made this spring 
in Westmoreland by Miss Mary L. Armitt, an accomplished field 
naturalist, who was good enough to send me her notes. 
On April 19th, a thoroughly summerlike day, Miss Armitt found 
the bee-fly (Bombylius) busy among the primroses near the foot of 
Nabscar, Rydal. In less than half-an-hour more than a dozen 
flowers were visited. Following up one insect it was seen to visit 
two flowers on one root both being thrum-eyed; then it went to 
another root and visited two flowers which were pin-eyed. Another 
bee-fly that was at work at the same time was also followed in its 
visits first to a short-styled and then to a long-styled plant. On a 
subsequent day Miss Armitt was successful in detecting a bee-fly 
visiting ten flowers in a quarter of an hour, one flower on one root, 
four on the next, three on another and two on a fourth plant. These 
records by so competent an observer should go far to confirm the 
observations made by me in two different localities and to mark out 
Bombylius as the chief agent in the cross-pollination of the primrose, 
and the result of the examination of the stigmas is clear evidence 
that these visits are not without effect. 
I was in a position this year too, to make some observations on 
the cowslip, and on Whit Monday particularly I had an opportunity 
of watching for insects in two fields in which cowslips were very 
plentiful. 
In the first meadow, which was very exposed, I saw no insects 
visiting the flowers, but in the second meadow, which was sheltered 
from the strong wind by a copse of trees, I observed five humble bees, 
each of which visited quite a large number of flowers. The insects 
proved to be specimens of Bonibus muscorum and Bombus terrestris 
This quite confirms Darwin’s statement that the “cowslip is habitually 
visited during the day by larger humble bees” a statement strongly 
controverted by Mr. Bell who states that he “failed to see a single 
instance of such a visit to the flowers by humble bees.” 
An examination of the stigmas of the cowslip both of the 
long styled and short styled forms reveals the presence of pollen- 
grains from flowers of a different form as well as pollen from the 
same or similar flowers, so that here too both cross and self- 
