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, 14,—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 asa 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 entomophilous flowers, or the loose, easily- 
scattered pollen of anemophilous flowers. In the former case (e.g., 
when Apis meliijica collects pollen on Salix) the bee has its suctoral 
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 tibize of its 
