TO]!fGUJf! or THE HONET-BEE. 413 



the saliva, and from which it parses upwards to the pharynx. 

 Thia chamber is almost obliterated when the tongue is retracted 

 and drawn within the mentum ; while, on the other hand, on the 

 protrusion of the tongue its capacity is considerably increased. 

 This can be more readily understood by reference to the diagrams 

 figs. 25 and 26, the asterisk (*) being the chamber. 



Before considering the action of the tongue, a reference must 

 be made to the ladle-shaped organ found at the tip of the tongue 

 (fig. 12, from above, fig. 13, end on, and fig. 14, side view). Mr. Hyatt 

 describes and figures it as a hollow cone or funnel which serves 

 as a sucking-disk (Amer. Q. Mic. Journal, 1879, vol. i. p. 287). 

 Others have spoken of and regarded it as a button. Upon the 

 concave surface of this ladle-shaped organ are a number of 

 curious hairs, shown at fig. 15 ; they are branched and divided in 

 the manner shown, with the hairs turned inwards. 



The true nature and function of the tongue has been the sub- 

 ject of discussion from very early times. Mr. Chambers, in the 

 ' Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History ' (April 

 1878), summarizes the various views entertained at different 

 times. It will be necessary briefly to refer to some of these 

 theories. Kirby and Spence (Introd. vol. ii. p. 177) say the 

 tongue, " though so long and sometimes so inflated, is not a tube 

 through which honey passes, nor a pump acting by suction, but 

 a real tongue, which laps or licks the honey and passes it down 

 on its upper surface, as we do, to the mouth." Huxley follows 

 this, and says, " Functionally this organ is a tongue, and enables 

 the bee to lap up the honey on which it feeds." Newport goes 

 more into detail, and says: — " It is not tubular, but solid . . . the 

 manner in which the honey is obtained when the organ is plunged 

 into it at the bottom of a flower is by lapping, or a constant suc- 

 cession of short and quick extensions and contractions of the 

 organ, which occasions the fluid to be accumulated upon it and 

 ascend along its upper surface until it reaches the orifice of the 

 tube formed by the approximation of the maxillge above and the 

 labial palpi and this part of the ligula below. . . At each contrac- 

 tion a part of the extended ligula is drawn within the orifice of 

 the tube, and the honey with which it is covered ascends into the 

 cavity of the mouth, assisted in its removal from the surface of 

 the ligula by the little bunch of hairs with which the elongated 

 second joint of each labial palpus is furnished." I have quoted 

 this at length, as it is substantially the same as that given by 

 Hermann Miiller in ' Nature,' vol. viii. p. 189, 



81* 



