126 Legs of Bees. 
who had in turn grasped hold of us. When walking up a 
vertical wall of glass or other smooth metal, the claws are 
of no use and so are turned back (Fig. 45) and the pul- 
villi—glandular organs—are spread out and serve to hold 
the bee. These secrete a viscid or adhesive substance which 
so sticks that the bee can even walk up a window pane. 
This is why ‘bees soon cloud or befoul glass over which 
they constantly walk. We thus understand why a bee 
finds it laborious and difficult to walk up a moist or dust- 
covered glass. 
The middle legs of the worker bee are only peculiar in 
the prominent tibial spur (Fig. 46) and the brushes or pol- 
len combs on the inside of the first tarsus. It has been said 
that the spur is useful in prying off the pollen masses from 
the posterior legs, as the bee enters the hive to deposit the 
pollen in the cells. This is doubtless an error. The queen 
and drone have this spur even longer than does the worker; 
the pollen comes off easy, and needs no crow-bar to loosen 
it. The coarse, projecting hairs on all the feet are doubt- 
less the agents that push off the loads of pollen. 
We have already seen how the brushes or combs on the 
inner face of the first tarsus of the middle legs serve to 
remove the dust from the antenna cleaner. These also 
serve as combs, like similar but more perfect organs on the 
posterior legs, to remove the pollen from the pollen hairs, 
and pack it in the pollen baskets on the hind legs. 
But the posterior legs are the most interesting, as it is 
rare to find organs more varied in their uses, and so as we 
should expect, these are strangely modified. The branch- 
ing or pollen gathering hairs (Fig. 48) are very abundant 
on the coxa trochanter and femur, and not absent, though 
much fewer (Fig. 47) on the broad triangular tibia. The 
basal tarsus (Fig. 47) is quadurate, and it, and the tibia 
on the outside (Fig. 47), are smooth and concave, espe- 
cially on the posterior portion, which shallow cavity forms 
the “pollen basket.” This is deepened by stiff marginal 
hairs, which stand up like stakes in asled. These spinous 
hairs not only hold the pollen mass, as do stakes, but often 
pierce it and so bind the soft pollen to the leg. Opposite 
the pollen cavity of the first tarsus, or on the inside (Fig 
