136 EVENINGS AT THE MICEOSCOPE. 



It is the hind foot of the Bee that we are now to ex- 

 amine. The first joint is, as you see, enlarged into a 

 wide, long, and somewhat ovate form, constituting a 

 flattish plate, slightly convex on both surfaces. The 

 upper face presents nothing remarkable, but the under 

 side is set with about nine stiff combs, the teeth of 

 which are homy straight spines, set in close array, and 

 arranged in transverse rows across the joint, nearly on 

 a level with its plane, but a little projecting, and so 

 ordered that the tips of one comb slightly overlap the 

 bases of the next. We see them in this example very 

 distinct, because their colour, a clear reddish-brown, 

 contrasts with a multitude of tiny globules of a pale 

 yellow hue, like minute eggs, which are entangled in 

 the combs. 



Now these globules serve to illustrate the object of 

 this apparatus. They are grains of pollen ; the dust 

 that is discharged from the anthers of flowers, which 

 being kneaded up with honey forms the food of the in- 

 .fantbees, and is, therefore, collected with great perse- 

 verance by those industrious insects ; and the way in 

 which they collect it is, by raking or combing it from 

 the anthers, by means of these eifective instruments on 

 their hind feet. 



You see that in this specimen the combs are loaded 

 with the grains, which lie thickly in the furrows be- 

 tween one comb and another. But how do they dis- 

 charge their gatherings ? Do they return to the hive, 

 as soon as they have accumulated a quantity such as 

 this, which one would suppose they could gather in 

 two or three scrapes of the foot ? No ; they carry a 

 pair of panniers, or collecting baskets, which they grad- 



