58 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1881. 



abled to separate a crop entire from the abdomen, and mount it 

 for microscopic examination. In this delicate woi'k, which could 

 not otherwise have been done, I was aided by some morbid con- 

 dition of the abdomen. I occasionally noticed, both in the natural 

 and artificial nests, honej^-bearers whose abdomens had the ap- 

 pearance of cones (PI. VI, fig. 3.3) and the outer membrane hung 

 in folds. ^ The}^ seemed to have suflTered some injury, which ap- 

 parently had affected the crop. It was from one of these that the 

 crop (PI. VIII, fig. 55) was taken. 



These studies point to the following conclusions : 



I. First ^ and absolutely, that it is the crop alone which contains 

 the nectar received at the mouth, which, immensely distended 

 thereby, fills the rounded abdomen of the honey-bearer. 



II. Second^ and absolutel}^, the organs of the abdominal portion 

 of the alimentary canal in the honey-brearers are ordinarilj^ in a 

 natural state, except in so far as their position has been changed 

 by the downward and backward pressure of the expanding crop. 

 This condition of the abdomen is fi-equent, in a greater or less 

 degree, among ants. 



There has been much error and loose statement on this point 

 among authors. So eminent an anatomist as Dr. Joseph Leidy 

 supposed that the honey was contained within the stomach ; that 

 all the other viscera of the stomach were obliterated, and that 

 even the tracheal A^essels had entirely disappeared.^ Dr. Oscar 

 Loew^ makes some correct notices of the honey -ant, as seen at Santa 

 Fe, New Mexico, but permits himself to recognize " the intestine . . 

 as a narrow canal winding through the rounded and puffed up ab- 

 domen." This could only, in any sense, be affirmed of a small 

 part of the abdomen, the posterior portion into which, as we have 

 seen, the intestine is crowded. It is possible that the dorsal ves- 



1 I do not credit the statement (Loew) that many of the rotunds burst 

 by force of the pressure upon the crop. Probably this never occurs in na- 

 ture. The spots of moistened clay seen by observers rather mark the 

 wreck of ants crushed by pressure upon the chambers and galleries during 

 excavation, or ruptured by falling from the roosts. 



2 Proceedings Academy Natural Science, Vol. VI, 1853, p. 72. This, 

 however, was twenty- nine years ago. 



^ Chemist and mineralogist to Lieut. "Wheeler's Exploring Expedition, 

 American Naturalist, Vol. VIII, 1874, p. 365-6. 



