48 CincmnaU Society of Natural History. 



least is continuous ivith it. But having extended the tongue, so that 

 the saek protrudes as above described, Raaumsr observed, as we may 

 also, along the lower portion of the sack, something which Reaumer 

 calls a '"line extending along the whole length of the tube. "' It looks 

 like a whitish or nearly colorless rod or tube, and in fact is a tube. 

 If we observe closely the mouth parts of an}^ of the higher Ilymenop 

 terad (bees and hive or fossorial wasps), we shall see just before the 

 mentum (of most authors, labium of Kirby and Spence), and in fact 

 connected with it by a more transpai'cnt portion of membrane, a 

 piece which has not, so far as I know, received any name as a dis- 

 tinct part of the tongue, being considered as a part of the mentum. 

 In fact it is a prolongation of that organ along its lower surface, 

 though seeming to be separated from it by a more-transparent part, and 

 it is placed just before the base of the labial palpi, each of which is af- 

 fixed to a similar prolongation of the mentum. On each side it rises, 

 curving around the base of the tongue, like a little horn, and in some 

 species these little horns almost meet on top: a membrane continuous 

 with the hairy sheath of the tongue passes over them, and back under the 

 labrum, as before stated; and in the short-tongned wasps ( Vespidce, 

 EmunidcB, Crahronidoi., and sonie others), on pressure upon it, fluids 

 are seen to flow backwards and forwards between the mentum and the 

 tongue, thus proving that a communication exists between them, sim- 

 ilar to that above described for the bees. But in the wasps the tongue 

 is not tubular; it is a sack capable of being inflated by either air or 

 fluid coming from the mentum. Dr. Packard, in the Guide, mentions a 

 Polistes.^ observed by him, in which the tongue was a barrel-shaped organ, 

 seeming to have a hole or slit at its apex, — that is the appearance of the 

 tongue in the short-tongued wasps, when not fully extended. When re 

 tracted the tongue is not inflated, and folds down on each side of a median 

 line and in expansion passes through the barrel-shaped form, which looks 

 as if it was open at the end, to the form of a furcate inflated sack, and 

 the appearance of the opening at the apex is seen to be caused by the 

 fold at the furcation. But in most wasps and bees the little piece that 

 I have mentioned in front of the mentum, besides the ascending horn- 

 like projection around each side mentioned above, has also a little 

 tooth projecting in front on its lower surface, and attached to this 

 tooth, or rather as a continuation of it, is the colorless rod, Reauraer's 

 line along the length of the tongue, above mentioned. This is found 

 in both the long and short tongued bees {Apis, Bombus, Zylocopa. 

 Jlegachile, Osmia, Coelioxys, Epeolus, Nomada, Augochlora, Halictus 

 and Colletes (and in the long-tongued wasps [Amophila, Odynerus. 

 Tachytes, etc.) It is a colorless, corneous projection from the under 

 surface of the little piece in front of the mentum, not in itself tubular. 

 y)ut in the bees forming a tube by curving up its sides until they meet 



