88 JOURNAL OF THE [April, 



wha^ undulating, and, as the overlapping of each row of adja- 

 cent cells occurs chiefly in the plane of a radial section, the ends 

 of a tracheide taper gradually towards a point. 



The upright resin canals connect with those of the medullary 

 tract. 



LIMITATION OF THE VISUAL FIELD OF THE 



WORKER HONEY-BEE'S OCELLI. 



i;y the rev. j. l. zabriskie. 



{Read March dth, 1885.) 



The Honey-bee is a remarkably hairy insect. On the head 

 the hairs are dense, and of various lengths ; and they cover 

 every part, even the compound eyes and the mandibles. The 

 antennae, however, are apparently smooth, having only micro- 

 scopic hairs ; and a path through the long hairs, from each 

 ocellus, or simple eye, directly outward, — to be described more 

 fully presently, — is practically smooth. 



The ocelli are so situated that when the bee is at rest and 

 the face vertical, they are directly on the top of the head, 

 arranged as an equilateral triangle, and one ocellus is directed 

 to the front, one to the right side, and one to the left. 



Long, branching hairs on the crown of the head stand thick 

 like a miniature forest, so that an ocellus is scarcely discernible 

 except from a particular point of view ; and then the observer 

 remarks an opening through the hairs, — a cleared pathway, as it 

 were, in such forest, — and notes that the ocellus, looking like a 

 glittering globe half immersed in the substance of the head, lies 

 at the inner end of the path. The opening connected with the 

 front ocellus expands forward from it like a funnel, with an 

 angle of about fifteen degrees. The side ocelli have paths more 

 narrow, but opening more vertically ; so that the two together 

 command a field which, though hedged in anteriorly and pos- 

 teriorly, embraces, in a plane transverse, of course, to the axis 

 of the insect's body, an arc of nearly one. hundred and eighty 

 degrees. 



These paths through the hairs appear to me to be indications 

 that the ocelli are intended for distant vision, although the 

 opinion that near vision is their function is held by eminent 

 opticians. 



