Flowers of the Primrose destroyed by Birds

Abstract

I HOPE that you will permit me to make a few final remarks on the destruction of primrose flowers by birds. But first I must return my best thanks to your correspondents, as well as to some gentlemen who have written direct to me, and to whom I have not had time to send separate answers. Secondly, I must plead guilty to the high crime of inaccuracy. As the stalks from which the flowers had been cut were shrivelled, I mistook, in a manner now inexplicable to me, the base of the ruptured or removed ovarium for the summit; a remnant of the shrivelled placenta being mistaken for the base of the pistil. I have now looked more carefully, and find that on twelve stalks only three had any remnant of the ovarium left. I have also examined sixteen bits of the calyx which had been cut off by a caged bullfinch, presently to be noticed, and in fifteen of these not only had the ovarium been torn into fragments or quite destroyed, but all the ovules had been devoured, excepting sometimes one or two. In several cases the calyx had been split open longitudinally. The ovarium was in the same state in thirteen small portions of the calyx lying on the ground near a wild cowslip plant. It is therefore clear that the ovules are the chief attraction; but the birds in removing by pressure the ovules could not fail to squeeze out the nectar at the open end, as occurred when I squeezed similar bits between my fingers. The birds thus get a dainty morsel, namely, young ovules with sweet sauce. I still think that the nectar is, in part, the attraction, as caged bullfinches and canary birds much like sugar; but more especially because Mr. C. J. Monro has sent me some flowers from a cherry-tree near Barnet, which during several years has been attacked; and he finds many of the flowers, both those on the tree and on the ground, with rather large ragged holes in the calyx, like, but much larger than, those often made by humble bees when they rob flowers in an illegitimate manner. Now the inside of the flower of the cherry, round the ovarium, is bedewed (if protected from the visits of insects) with drops of nectar, which sometimes collect so as almost to fill up the bottom of the flower. In the case of the cherry I cannot doubt that this is the attraction, for I examined the ovarium of ten flowers, and although they had all been scored by the bird's beak, and in four instances punctured, the ovule had in no case been devoured.