142 EVENINGS AT THE MICROSCOPE 



apparatus. They are grains of pollen; the dust that is 

 discharged from the anthers of flowers, which being 

 kneaded up with honey forms the food of the infant 

 bees, and is, therefore, collected with great perseverance 

 by those industrious insects; and the way in which they 

 collect it is by raking or combing it from the anthers by 

 means of these effective instruments on their hind- feet. 



You see that in this specimen the combs are loaded 

 with the grains, which lie thickly in the furrows between 

 one comb and another. But how do they discharge their 

 gatherings ? Do they return to the hive as soon as they 

 have accumulated a quantity such as this, which one would 

 suppose they could gather in two or three scrapes of the 

 foot? No; they carry a pair of panniers, or collecting 

 baskets, which they gradually fill from the combs, and 

 then return to deposit the results of their collecting. 



One of these baskets I can show you; and, indeed, we 

 should be unpardonable to overlook it, for it is the com- 

 panion structure to the former, I make the stage forceps 

 to revolve on its axis, and thus bring into focus the joint 

 (tibia) immediately above that of the combs, and so that 

 we shall look at its. opposite surface; that is, the outer, 

 We notice at once two or three peculiarities, which distin- 

 guish the joint in this instance from other parts of the 

 same limb, and from the corresponding part in the same 

 limb of other insects. 



First, the surface is decidedly concave, whereas it is or- 

 dinarily convex. Secondly, this concave surface is smooth 

 and polished (except that it is covered with a minute net- 

 work of crossed lines), not a single hair, even the most 

 minute, can be discerned in any part; whereas the corre- 

 sponding surface of the next joints, both above and below, 



