174- PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



tilizing dust of the anthers, of which they make what is 

 called bee-bread, serving as food both to old and young; 

 and the resinous substance called by the ancients Pro- 

 polis, Pissoceros, &c. used in various ways in rendering 

 the hive secure and giving the finish to the combs. The 

 first of these substances is the pure fluid secreted in the 

 nectaries of flowers, which the length of their tongue 

 enables them to reach in most blossoms. The tongue 

 of a bee, you are to observe, though so long and some- 

 times so inflated 51 , is not a tube through which the honey 

 passes, nor a pump acting by suction, but a real tongue 

 which laps or licks the honey, and passes it down on 

 its upper surface, as we do, to the mouth, which is at its 

 base concealed by the mandibles 5 . It is conveyed by 

 this orifice through the oesophagus into the first stomach, 

 which we call the honey-bag, and which, from being 

 very small, is swelled when full of it to a considerable 

 size. Honey is never found in the second stomach, 

 (which is surrounded with muscular rings, and resembles 

 a cask covered with hoops from one end to the other,) 

 but only in the first : in the latter and the intestines the 

 bee-bread only is discovered. How the wax is secreted, 

 or what vessels are appropriated to that purpose, is not 

 yet ascertained. Huber suspects that a cellular sub- 

 stance, consisting of hexagons, which lines the mem- 



" O Nature kind ! O labourer wise ! 



That roam'st along the summer's ray, 

 Glean'st every bliss thy life supplies, 



And meet'st prepared thy wintry day ! 

 Go, envied go with crowded gates 

 The hive thy rich return awaits ; 

 . Bear home thy store, in triumph gay, 

 And shame each idler of the day." 

 a Reaum. v. t. xxviii./. 1.2. b Ibid./. 7. o. 



