HYMENOPTERA—BEES 147 
In the species of the above-named three genera, the habit exists of wetting 
the pollen with honey before heaping it up in the collecting-apparatus, thus making 
it into a coherent mass, which does not need to be entirely enclosed by collecting- 
hairs. This mass can easily be taken out of the collecting-apparatus and at once 
used as larval food. The pollen-apparatus of the hind-legs is therefore extremely 
perfect and permits considerable economy of collecting-Hairs, and also much saving 
of time in emptying the collecting-apparatus and preparing the larval food. In the 
genera Lucera, Anthophora, Dasypoda, and Panurgus, the collecting-hairs are limited 
as in the previous genera to the tibiae and basal joints of the tarsus, so that here too 
a rapid and convenient removal of the collected pollen is possible. Indeed Eucera 
and Anthophora already possess. an arrangement resembling the collecting-apparatus 
of Bombus, for a greater broadening of the pollen-receiving tibia and basal tarsal 
joint has rendered possible a relatively small development of hairs, which interfere 
with flying and creeping movements. In Panurgus, the hairs on the tibia and 
proximal tarsal joint, which represent the collecting-apparatus, are considerably longer 
and therefore more in the way than in Eucera and Anthophora, but even here they 
are entirely confined to these regions. In Dasypoda, on the other hand, not only are 
the collecting-hairs of the tibia extraordinarily long, so that the movements of these 
bees are slow and almost clumsy compared with those belonging to the genera already 
mentioned, but the thigh, the trochanter, and coxa are also beset with long, thick 
hairs, so that these parts share in the collecting of pollen, though in a lesser degree. 
Dasypoda hirtipes has such long feathery collecting-hairs on the coxae, tibiae, and 
the greatly elongated basal tarsal joints of the hind-legs, that it is able to heap upon 
them immense balls of pollen, which may be half the size of the abdomen. Sprengel 
(‘Entd. Geh.,” p. 370) observed this bee on Hypochoeris radicata. ‘At noon, 
during beautiful weather, I noticed a bee on this plant, with such large balls of pollen 
_ on its hind-legs that I was amazed. They were not much smaller than the entire body 
of the insect, and gave it the appearance of a heavily-laden pack-horse. Yet the bee 
could fly with its burden at a great rate, and was not yet contented with the provision 
it had collected, but flew from one flower-head to another to increase its load.’ 
Hermann Miller (Verh. nathist. Ver., Bonn, xli, 1868, pp. 1-62) states that a single 
load of pollen, such as a female of Dasypoda hirtipes carries to her nest, weighs 
about half as much as her own body. Five or six such loads, after they have been 
moistened with honey, are made by the bee into a ball weighing 0-23-0-36 gr., and 
this is entirely consumed by the larva that develops upon it. 
The species of Panurgus with their highly developed collecting-apparatus visit, 
almost exclusively, yellow Composites of the group Cichoraceae, chiefly limiting their 
activity to the collection of pollen. When on a capitulum they often turn over on 
their sides or roll about, and are almost hidden among the florets. 
As regards specialization in relation to flowers these four genera are consider- 
ably lower in the scale than Apis, Bombus, and Macropis, for they are not in the- habit 
of moistening the pollen before loading themselves with it, so as to form a coherent . 
mass which can be taken from the collecting-apparatus in the shortest possible time 
(cf. p. 146). | 
The genera Anthrena, Halictus, and Prosopis are at a much lower stage in 
respect of adaptation to flower-food. ‘In many species of the two first-named genera 
L 2 
