V 



THE LEGS 



Although less airy and poetical than the wings, the legs 

 of the bee have an interest of their own. In fact, when 

 properly understood, they do not fall far short of the wings 

 in poetic value ; and if the ancients had known them as we 

 do, the bee's legs, no doubt, would have been immortal- 

 ized in song and made the subject of innumerable graceful 

 allusions. 



As it is, the poets have done scant justice to the legs of 

 my lady the bee, though Milton in " II Penseroso " thus al- 

 ludes to her pollen-laden thigh, — 



" Hide me from the garish eye, 

 While the bee with honeyed thigh, 

 That at her flowery work doth sing, 

 And the waters murmuring, 

 With such concert as they keep, 

 Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep." 



And Shakespeare in " Henry IV." — using the bees in a 

 simile — speaks of " thighs packed with wax," a mistake as 

 to the office of thighs, for they never carry wax, but a 

 tribute to the thighs themselves that we cannot afford to 

 let pass unnoticed. 



The bee's legs perform the usual offices of legs : running, 

 walking, jumping, climbing, and clinging, and do these 

 things very well ; but this is the prose side, for they are 

 furnished with ingenious and beautiful instruments for per- 

 forming offices not usually accorded to mere legs. But 



