Tongue of the Honey -Bee. 291 



labium, lower lip, tongue, trunk, etc.; and the main question is 

 whether this tongue is a solid lapping organ or a tubular one 

 adapted to sucking fluids. Mr. Chambers describes it as consist- 

 ing of three parts ; a solid, colorless, tubular rod, termed by some 

 authors the true tongue, enclosed by a hairy sheath, within which, 

 on each side of the rod, as shown in his drawing of a transverse 

 section, is what he calls the "membranous sack." 



The colorless rod or tube is represented in his figure as some- 

 what triangular in shape, but with its lower angle rounded ; just 

 within this angle is the circular canal which extends through the 

 entire length of the rod. Within this tube Mr. Chambers describes 

 a " thin partition of fine hairs," but he is not " fully convinced 

 that this is the true interpretation of that which certainly is seen." 

 Mr. Chambers is decidedly of the opinion that the tongue of the 

 bee is a sucking organ. 



The reader is now sufficiently acquainted with the present 

 state of our knowledge of this subject ; I will therefore proceed 

 to give the conclusions which I have reached from my examina- 

 tions, and describe the methods employed so that the reliability of 

 these results, which are somewhat at variance from any hereto- 

 fore given, may be estimated. 



It seemed to me that the only reliable method of determining 

 the structure of the tongue would be to obtain extremely thin 

 transverse sections along its entire length, which might be examined 

 with any desirable power of the microscope; but the obstacle which 

 presented itself was the compound nature of the organ, ordinary 

 methods of cutting which, resulted in distortion and displacement 

 of the parts in the section to such an extent as to render these 

 processes quite unreliable. I therefore resorted to the device of 

 imbedding the organ in a transparent cement, by means of which 

 I could readily cut sections along the entire length and not ex- 

 ceeding one five-hundredth of an inch in thickness, leaving the 

 parts cut through in their normal shape and relative position 

 for examination. A great advantage of this method is that any 

 desired number of sections can be made in a few minutes, a 

 comparison of which will eliminate all possibility of error in inter- 

 pretation. 



The appearance of the tongue of the bee from the bifurcation 

 of the maxillary palpi to the apex, omitting the other appendages, 

 is shown in Plate XX., Fig. i. It consists of the hairy sheath, or la- 

 bium, which is chitinous but quite flexible, having a slit along the 



