H YMENOPTERABEES 



149 



especially to their hind-legs, and they possess feebly-developed tarsal brushes, which 

 can be used not only to clean the body, but also to collect pollen which has adhered 

 to any part of it. The genus Prosopis, therefore, is on the lowest level among bees, 

 and belongs to them only because of the way it feeds its young. They fill their 

 brood-chambers (which are coated by means of their 

 broad tongue with hardened slime) with a mixture of 

 regurgitated honey and pollen, and this serves as nourish- 

 ment for the larva when it escapes from the egg (Hermann 

 Miiller, 'Fertilisation,' p. 47). The same method of 

 nourishing the young also occurs in Sphecodes, but here 

 the larvae are fed not only on regurgitated honey, but 

 also on pollen that has adhered to the hairy covering 

 of the bee's body. The latter merely supplementary 

 method of collecting pollen as larval food by means of 

 the body-hairs becomes the exclusive or at any rate the 

 chief one (' Fertilisation,' p. 51). 



In contrast to the above-described ' scopulipedes ' 

 are the ' dasygastres,' to which the species of the 

 genera Anthidium, Chalicodoma (now united with 

 Megachile), Chelostoma, Diphysis, Heriades, Megachile, and Osmia belong, in this 

 second main group of bees there are no marked differences as regards the formation 

 of the pollen-collecting apparatus, which is pretty much the same in all the genera. 



Fig. 61. Sphecodes (after Her- 

 mann Miiller). Right hind-leg of 

 Sph. gibbus L. , seen from be- 

 hind : <r, coxa (hip) ; /r, tro- 

 chanter : _/i femur (thigh) ; ti, 

 tibia (shin) ; /', basal joint of the 

 tarsus ; /, tarsus (foot). 



Fig. 62. Right hind-leg of Prosopis variegaia, F. 'i , seat frovi behind {s.ht.r Hermann Miiller). 

 c, coxa (thigh) ; ir, trochanter ; f, femur (thigh) ; ti, tibia (.shin) ; /, joints of the tarsus (foot) ; /', basal 

 joint of the tarsus. 



It will therefore be sufficient to consider one only, and here again I shall follow 

 Hermann Miiller (' Fertilisation,' p. 34), whose account is somewhat as follows : 



The whole or nearly the whole ventral surface of the abdomen is covered with 

 a single brush of stiff bristles inclined backwards, and which vary greatly in length, 

 closeness, and colour in dififerent species, but are always simple and smooth, without 



