154 THB bek-kbbpkr's guidb ; 



are smooth and concave, especially on the posterior portion, 

 which shallow cavity forms the corbicula or " pollen-basket." 

 This is deepened by stiff marginal hairs, which stand up like 

 stakes in a sled. 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. 71), are about eleven rows of stiff hairs. 

 They are of golden color, and very beautiful. These may be 

 called the pollen-combs, for it is they that gather, for the most 

 part, the pollen from the pollen-gathering hairs of legs and 

 body, and convey it to and pack it in the pollen-basli ets. As 

 we have seen (Fig. 69), there are less perfect combs — similar in 

 character, position and function — on the middle legs. The 

 contiguous ends of the tibia and first tarsus or planta are most 

 curiously modified to form the wax-jaws. The back part of 

 this joint (Figs. 70, 71) reminds one of a steel trap with teeth, 

 or of the jaws of an animal, the teeth in this case consisting 

 of spinous hairs. The teeth on the tibia, the pecten or comb, 

 are strong and prominent. These shut against the upper ear- 

 like auricle of the planta, and thus the function of these wax- 

 jaws is doubtless to grasp and remove the wax-scales from the 

 wax-pockets, and carry them to the jaws of the bees. These 

 I wax-jaws are not found in queens or drones, nor in other than 

 I wax-producing bees. They are well developed in Trigona and 

 Melipona, and less, though plainly marked, in Ijombus. 

 Girard gives this explanation in his admirable work Les 

 Abeilles ; and as he is no plagiarist, as he gives fullest credit 

 to others, he may be the discoverer of these wax-jaws. If he 

 is not, I know not who is. The genus Agis is peculiar among 

 our bees, and really exceptional among insects in having no 

 posterior tibial spurs. They would, of course, be in the way of 

 action of the wax-jaws. As before stated, there are six seg- 

 ments to the abdomen, in the queen and worker-bee (Fig.9), and 

 seven in the male. Each of these abdominal rings consists of 

 a dorsal piece or plate — tergite or notum and pleurites united — 

 which bears the spiracle, and which overlaps the ventral plate 

 or sternite. These plates are strengthened with chitine. 

 These rings are connected with a membrane, so that they can 



