58 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



period without dissolving, if decomposition be pre- 

 vented; but during the process of chewing or 

 mastication, glands, of which we, like our bees, 

 have three pairs, pour into the mouth, saliva, whose 

 principal office is to chemically change some parts 

 of our food, and notably starch, which, under its 

 action, begins to be formed into sugar, one of the 

 most soluble bodies furnished by the plant world. 

 After swallowing, the process of transformation goes 

 on, until at length all starch has disappeared, and 

 the sugar produced from it has, by absorption, got 

 into the blood current. This sugar, although derived 

 from starch, is still the representative of the honey 

 of the bee, while the gluten, the residue of our 

 bread, is the counterpart of her pollen — so similar 

 are our sources of sustenance. But gluten requires 

 a treatment distinct from that which the starch 

 received, for the former is not materially affected in 

 the mouth, but, passing into the stomach, the gastric 

 secretion acts upon it and so transforms it that a 

 new and soluble material, sometimes called albu- 

 minose, is produced, which can be, on account of its 

 liquid condition, transmitted to the blood, and that 

 mainly by the action of a multitude of minute 

 thread-like bodies, which cover the inner side of part 

 of the alimentary tube, and. so to speak, drink up 

 the dissolved, or, in other words, digested, nourish- 

 ment. This glairy material, thin and transparent, is, 

 after absorption, carried up a narrow channel running 

 in front of the backbone, and poured at length into 

 a vein under the middle of the clavicle (collar-bone) 

 on the left side. Thus mixed with the blood, it is 



