9 
seizing robbers by the leg, and removing dead bees and debris 
from the hive. They also bear tactile hairs, and these 
probably ensure the delicacy of touch necessary in fashioning 
the wonderful comb. The so-called tongue or proboscis (/) is 
not really a tongue, but a prolongation of the lower lip. This 
is the organ which is unfolded and thrust down into the 
heart of the flower to reach the nectar. It is many-jointed 
and covered thickly with hairs, so that it is rather a brush 
than a tube. The bee does not so much suck up the nectar 
as mop it up with this brushlike organ. 
The Thorax. 
A very narrow white neck connects the head with the 
thorax, or chest. This bears the six legs and the four wings, 
and the cavity of the thorax is filled mainly with the muscles 
which work these limbs. The thorax is the meaty ,ait of 
the bee, and is the only part carrie away by a wasp, which 
has killed a bee for food. The w:i-} cuts off the head, the 
legs, the wings and the abdomen, and flies away to its nest 
carrying only the lump of red meat constituting the thorax 
of the bee. 
The Abdomen. 
A second narrow isthmus, the petiole, connects the thorax 
with the abdomen, which is the largest division of the body. 
This is in sections, and the sections move in and out a little 
way like the joints of a telescope. It is by this means that 
the creature breathes. The abdomen is enlarged or reduced by 
a telescopic action, and air passes in and out, not by the mouth 
or nose as in the higher animals, but through a series of holes 
situated along each side of the bee. Some of these holes, or 
spiracles, are found on the abdomen and some on the thorax, 
but none on the head. It is not possible, therefore, to drown 
a bee by holding its head under water, since the breathing of 
the bee would go on as usual with the head submerged. 
At the extreme tip of the abdomen is situated the sting, 
which is a very important organ, for without its presence 
the bee would long since have become extinct, 
