GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 25 
low nervures or ribs, and have a great power of resistance. 
In flight, the small wings are fastened to the large ones by 
small hooks (fig. 14), located on the edge of their outer 
nervure, that catch in a fold of the inner edge of the large 
wings. Thus united, they present to the air.a stronger 
surface and give the bees a greater power of flight. No 
doubt, a single pair of wings of the same surface would have 
better attained the desired aim, but their width would have 
annoyed the bees in going inside of the cells, either to feed 
7? ¢ 
on 
eG uff 
VLA 
Abe“ 
WINGS OF THE HONEY-BEE. 
(Magnified. From Cheshire.) 
A, anterior wing, under side; p,p, plait. 
B, posterior wing, under side; h,h, hooklets. 
C, cross-section of wings through line a,b, showing hooklets in plait, 
the larvae or to deposit supplies. Imagine a blue fly trying, 
with its wide wings, to go inside of a cell! 
61. ‘‘ Mr. Gaurichon has noticed that when the bees fan, 
or ventilate the entrance of the hive,-their wings are not 
hooked together as they are in flight, but act independent- 
ly of one another.’? (Dubini, 1881.) A German entomolo- 
gist, Landois, states that, according to the pitch of their 
hum, the bees’ flight must at times be equal to 440 vibra- 
tions in a second, but he noticed that this speed could not 
