ACTION OF HIND LEGS. 
17 
basket receives a small contribution of pollen, is being completed, the 
right leg is lowered and the pecten of this leg is brought into contact 
with the pollen combs of the left planta, over which they scrape as 
the left leg is raised, thus depositing pollen upon the lateral surfaces 
of the pecten spines of the right leg. (See fig. 7.) 
Eight and left baskets thus receive alternately successive contribu- 
tions of pollen from the planta of the opposite leg. These loading 
movements are executed with great rapidity, the legs rising and fall- 
ing with a pump-like motion. A very small amount of pollen is 
loaded at each stroke and many strokes are required to load the 
baskets completely. 
If one attempts to obtain, from the literature of apiculture and 
zoology, a knowledge of the method by which the pollen baskets 
Fig. 7. — A bee upon the wing, showing the manner in which the hind legs are held during 
the basket-loading process. Pollen is being scraped by the pecten spines of the right 
leg from the pollen combs of the left hind planta. (Original.) 
themselves are loaded, he is immediately confused by the diversity of 
the .accounts available. The average textbook of zoology follows 
closely Cheshire's (1886) description in which he says that " the legs 
are crossed, and the metatarsus naturally scrapes its comb face on the 
upper edge of the opposite tibia in the direction from the base of the 
combs toward their tips. These upper hairs * * * are nearly 
straight, and pass between the comb teeth. The pollen, as removed, 
is caught by the bent-over hairs, and secured. Each scrape adds to 
the mass, until the face of the joint is more than covered, and the 
hairs just embrace the pellet." Franz (1906) states that (translated) 
" the final loading of the baskets is accomplished by the crossing over 
of the hind-tarsal segments, which rub and press upon each other." 
Many other observers and textbook writers evidently believed that 
the hind legs were crossed in the loading process. 
61799°— Bull. 121—12 3 
