WINGS AND FLIGHT. 139 



in the van, and the queen in the rear. The queen's 

 hooklets vary considerably in number, ranging from 

 thirteen to twenty-one ; t he worker's, nineteen to 

 twenty-thre_e ; the drone's, twenty-one to twenty-six. 



Bees are accomplished fliers, but they never traverse 

 the air with the same directness as many birds, so 

 that the expression "bee line," used by bee-hunters, 

 needs to be accepted in a modified sense. It is their 

 habit to skim along, in extended sweeps, alternately 

 curving to right and left. The rapidity of their aerial 

 voyages is difficult to calculate. Stories have been 

 detailed of their darting in and out of the windows 

 of a train, in rapid movement, but these furnish no 

 evidence of their velocity when unaided, since the 

 train carries the air lying in its neighbourhood along 

 with it, as leaves and paper scraps frequently make 

 clear. My own observations lead me to suppose 

 that the pace ranges between two and sixteen or 

 eighteen miles per hour, depending upon the load 

 and the nature of the errand — a bee, bearing the 

 body of a deceased sister from the hive, taking 

 the funereal pace, while those issuing forth on 

 business bent go express. 



We must now turn our attention to the means 

 by which the mere flapping movement of the wings 

 is made to translate the creature through the air, 

 forwards or backwards, at any velocity less than its 

 maximum, and in any direction it may desire. 



Fig. 27 shows a strong chitinous rod, called the 

 costal nervure, running along the anterior margin of A; 

 and it is this nervure, carried up and down by the 

 reciprocal contractions of the depressor and levator 



