58 AUSTRALASIAN 



up into a small pellet by her tongue and feet, and placed by 

 the second pair in the spoon-shaped hollows, or baskets, on 

 the third or last pair of legs, and neatly patted down. 



Fig. 16— ANTERIOR LEG OF WORKER, MAGNIFIED. 



It must, however, be observed that Professor Cook, one of 

 the best authorities, writes very cautiously on this point. He 

 says : — 



" For several years this has caused speculation among my students, 

 and has attracted the attention of observing apiarists. Some have 

 supposed that it aided bees in reaching deeper down into tubular 

 flowers ; others, that it was used in scraping off pollen, and still others, 

 that it enabled bees to hold on when clustering. The first two 

 suggestions may be correct, though other honey and pollen -gathering 

 bees do not possess it. The latter function is performed by the claws 

 at the end of the tarsi." 



This throws a doubt upon the matter, and we must be 

 cautious not to assert as a fact anything that is not already 

 universally admitted to be such, or that we cannot decisively 

 prove by our own investigation. I have often watched bees 

 gathering pollen, and thought I could observe the process of 

 scraping the tongue, or something very like it. But it must 

 be admitted that the movements of the bee on such occasions 

 are so amazingly rapid that it would be difficult to say there 

 could be no mistake as to the operation performed. 



Muller says : — 



"In collecting pollen, hive-bees and humble-bees use " their 

 mouth-parts in two different ways to moisten it, according as it 

 is the fixed pollen of entomophUous flowers, or the loose, easily- 

 scattered pollen of anemophilous flowers. In the former case {e.g., 

 when Apis mellifica collects pollen on Salix) the bee has its suctorial 

 apparatus completely folded down, bringing the mouth opening, which 

 lies between the mandibles and the labrum, close over the pollen. The 

 bee ejects a little honey on the pollen, and then takes it up by means 

 of its tarsal brushes and places it in the baskets on the tibiae of its 



