ORDER VI. VEIN-WINGED INSECTS. 275 



feet are used in the capacity of hands, with which they 

 collect the pollen, brush it from the head, move it along to 

 the second pair of legs, and thence to the hind legs, which 

 are much longer than the others, and upon each of which 

 is a small triangular cavity, shaped something like a spoon, 

 and hence called a, fossa, which is destined to receive the 

 pollen of flowers, which they thus carry to their hives, for 

 the purpose of furnishing food for themselves and the 

 drones, and for the manufacture of wax. Humble-bees 

 have similar baskets, or fossae, in their hind legs. 



It was formerly supposed by many, even by some dis- 

 tinguished naturalists, that the bees were blind ; but so ab- 

 surd an idea can easily be proved erroneous by covering 

 their eyes with thick varnish, when, being unable to fly 

 around, they rise perpendicularly in the air and disappear, 

 in the same manner as does a crow, to which a bait be- 

 smeared with bird-lime has become fastened on its head. 



Notwithstanding the ingenious Francis Hubcr, of Geneva, 

 tried, by several experiments, to prove that the wax pro- 

 ceeds from the honey, and not from pollen, still the previ- 

 ous experiments of Reaumure, as well as those of some of 

 the most experienced apiarians since, have distinctly de- 

 monstrated the contrary, as is also stated in the " Treatise 

 on Bees, by Robert Huish, London, 1815." Reaumure says 

 that the bees collect the substance of wax only from flow- 

 ers, filling their fossce or leg-cavities with farina, and lick- 

 ing from the bottom of the blossoms the nectar, or sweet 

 substance, which they swallow, and afterward disgorge it 

 into the cells. But in the same manner they also gather 

 from other vegetables a viscous substance, which they carry 

 home in their fossre, and with this gluey matter, collected 

 from the poplar, birch, willow, fir, and other trees, and tho 

 flirina they compose a glutinous aromatic substance called 

 propolis, which is similar to wax, but different in its fabrica- 

 tion ; in fact it is wax, but coarser in its constitution. The 



