APIS. 331 



hollowed longitudinally and their lateral edges fringed 

 with recurved hair, which retains whatever may be placed 

 within the smooth and hollow surface, and the apical ex- 

 treme edge has a pecten or comb of short stiff bristles. 

 The first joint of the posterior feet have also their dis-. 

 tinctive form, adapted to special branches of their eco- 

 nomy. These are oblong, wider than the shank, and 

 about two-thirds its length, and consequently powerful 

 limbs ; at the outer angle of the edge, nearest the shank, 

 is a little projection called the auricle or earlet, the inner 

 surface is clothed with ten parallel transverse rows of 

 close dense hair, and its apical edge has along its whole 

 width a pecten similar to that of the apex of the shank. 

 This shank being without spurs, which only the domestic 

 bee is deficient in, gives the pecten a freedom of action 

 it would not otherwise have, and enables it to be used 

 together with the earlet opposite to it on the foot, as an 

 instrument for laying hold of the thin flakes of wax 

 upon the venter, and to bring them forward to the inter- 

 mediate legs to be passed on to the mouth, and there to 

 be converted into wax. The pecten of the foot and also 

 its brush aid in their removal in case of need, and help 

 as well both in the manipulation and the storing the 

 materials collected. Thus, this whole structure, exclu- 

 sively possessed by the worker, is pre-eminently designed 

 for the manifold operations of the hive; and the bee 

 itself and its works are but one closely linked chain of 

 wonderful contrivances. 



The entire economy of the hive seems to emanate ex- 

 clusively from the two most prominent attributes of in- 

 stinct, that of self-preservation, and that other more im- 

 portant axis of the vast wheel of creation, the secured 

 perpetuation of the kind by the conservative a-Topyrj, or 



