INSECTS I THEIB FEET. 121 



greatly increase the capacity of the vessel to receive the 

 load, on the principle of the sloping stakes which the 

 farmer plants along the sides of his waggon when he is 

 going to carry a load of hay or corn. 



But, you ask, how can the Bee manage to transfer the 

 pollen from the combs to the basket ? Can she bend up 

 the tarsus to the tibia ? or, if she can, surely she could 

 only reach the inner, not the outer surface of the latter. 

 How is this managed ? 



A very shrewd question. Truth to say, the basket 

 you have been looking at never received a single grain 

 from the combs of the joint below it. But the Bee has a 

 pair of baskets and a pair of comb-joints. It is the right 

 set of combs that fills the left basket, and vice versa. She 

 can easily cross her hind-legs, and thus bring the tarsus 

 of one into contact with the tibia of the other ; and if you 

 will pay a moment's more attention to the matter, you 

 will discover some further points of interest in this beau- 

 tiful series of contrivances stilL If you look at this living 

 Bee, you notice that, from the position of the joints, when 

 the insect would bring one hind-foot across to the other, 

 the under surface of the tarsus would naturally scrape the 

 edge of the opposite tibia in a direction from the basis of 

 the combs towards their tips ; and, further, that the edge 

 of the tibia so scraped would be the hinder edge, as the 

 leg is ordinarily carried in the act of walking. * 



Now, if you take another glance at the basket-joint in 

 the forceps of the microscope, you will see what, perhaps, 

 you have already noticed that the marginal spines have 

 not exactly the same curvature on the two opposite edges, 

 but that those of the one edge are nearly straight, or at 

 most but slightly bowed, whereas those of the opposite 

 edge are strongly curved, the arc in many of them reach- 

 ing even to a semicircle, so that their points, after per- 

 forming the outward arch, return to a position perpendi- 

 cularly over the medial line of the basket. 



