142 



BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



frequently follows the body. If a bee be watched, 

 too, honey-gathering — e.g., on an apple-tree — she flies 

 rapidly from flower to flower ; but, at the exact 

 moment, her hasty advance is suddenly and mysteri- 

 ously checked, so that she plies her quest by a touch 

 of such measured delicacy, that no filament, however 

 tender, is broken, and no petal unduly pressed. But 

 by what means is this sudden stopping, or this back- 

 ing, secured? And here we get a deeper insight into 

 the meaning of the small wings than that previously 

 gained ; for, although it is clear that they consider- 

 ably aid in sustaining the bee, from the fact that 

 she can fly down, but not up, after their removal, 



_„ ^ C/fA 



A 



DSF 



DSB 



Fig. 29.— Section of Wings (Magnified Twelve times), to Explain how Flight is 



Directed. 



aw, Anterior Wing ; piv, Posterior Wing ; en, Costal Nervure ; p, Plait ; h, 

 Hooklets ; c, Air Currents ; H, Position of Head ; A, Position of Abdomen ; 

 DSF, Down Stroke, Flying Forward ; DSB, Down Stroke, Flying Backwards. 



yet they subserve other purposes, by adaptations which 

 cannot fail to strike us as unspeakably beautiful. 



In Fig. 28 we observe that the up and down move- 

 ments of the stick are wider in range than that of 

 the paper, and that its motion decreases as we pass 

 from right to left ; similarly, in Fig. 29, where the 

 cross section of the two locked wings is given, at 

 DSF (representing the position at the down stroke 

 when flying forwards) we must note that the large 

 wing has a more extended beat than the smaller, since 

 the latter is the equivalent of that part of the paper 



