§ HI.] THORAX AND ORGANS OF MOTION. 97 



has experiment, to our view, in its • favour, though of 

 course not decisively so. But whether this is correct 

 or not, this pair of horns play an important part with the 

 useful faculties which they combine. 



With their extraordinary devotion to sweets, bees can 

 hardly but be possessed of a strong sense of taste, though 

 in consequence of their being detected occasionally lap- 

 ping the impure liquids from stable or other foetid drains, 

 Huber considered it the least perfect of their senses. 

 But it is now ascertained that bees, like most animals, 

 are fond of salt, and they therefore resort to dunghills 

 and stagnant marshes, from which they are doubtless able 

 to extract saline draughts. It cannot be denied, however, 

 that, according to our ideas, their taste is otherwise at 

 fault ; thus it sometimes happens that, where onions and 

 leeks abound and are allowed to run to seed, bees are 

 so anxious to complete their winter stores, that, from 

 feeding on these plants, a disagreeable flavour is com- 

 municated to the honey (see Chap. VI. § iii.). 



§ III. THE THORAX AND ORGANS OF MOTION. 



The thorax or chest approaches in figure to a sphere, 

 and is united to the head by a thread-like ligament. 

 This is the centre of the organs of motion. Here are 

 attached both the muscles that move the legs and wings, 

 and the legs and wings themselves. 



In Fig. I of Plate II., b, b, b show the muscles that 

 move the wings; e, e, the bases of the wings. These 



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