INSECTS. THEIR FEET 143 



is studded with fine hairs, as is the exterior of insects 

 generally. Thirdly, the edges of this hollowed basin are 

 beset with long, slender, acute spines, which pursue the 

 same curve as the bottom and sides, expanding widely, 

 and arching upward. 



Here, then, we have a capital collecting-basket. Its 

 concavity of course fits, it to contain the pollen. Then its 

 freedom from hairs is important: hairs would be out of 

 place in the concavity. Thirdly, the marginal spines 

 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 wagon 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 dis- 

 cover some further points of interest in this beautiful series 

 of contrivances still. If you look at this living bee, you 

 notice that, from the position of the joints, when the in- 

 sect would bring one hind -foot across to the other, the un- 

 der surface of the tarsus would naturally scrape the edge 

 of the opposite tibia in a direction from the bases of the 



