INSECTS AND FLOWEKS. 
121 
entomologists, even of so accomplished an observer as Milne- 
Edwards, who says that “ honey-bees obtain their food not by 
sucking, but, as it were, by lapping, nearly in the same manner 
as a cat does.” The same view is held by Carl Vogt and 
Gerstaecker. Hermann Muller, however, considers that he has 
proved that bees and other Hymenoptera really do suck honey. 
Fig. 5 (borrowed from him) represents the oral apparatus of a 
hive- or humble-bee stretched out to its fullest extent. The 
most prominent portion of this apparatus is the long tongue or 
ligula, li , at the end of which is a little membranous lobe, w, 
which was erroneously taken by Swammerdamm for a perfora- 
tion. The ligula is composed of a number of rings, each pro- 
vided with a whorl of hairs, which can be erected or pressed 
closely to the ligula at will. This ligula can be partially 
drawn back into the tubular mentum , mt. On each side of 
the ligula, and inserted into the mentum, are the labial palpi , 
pi , the two first joints of which are flattened and very slender, 
with a central rib, forming a sheath to the tongue, enclosing it 
from below, whilst the two small joints at the tips serve as 
feelers. The maxillae terminate in two flat lanceolate horny 
pieces, the lamince , la, each with a central rib, which also 
form a sheath to the tongue, enclosing it from above. The 
maxillary palpi , pm, occur in the mouth of typical bees only 
as atrophied useless organs. When a bee is obtaining honey 
from a flower, it may be seen to execute in succession a number 
of distinct acts of suction, sometimes as many as eight or ten, 
each act being accompanied by a protrusion of the tip of the 
tongue, followed by a retraction of it and of the whole sucking- 
tube. The mechanism of these movements is thus described by 
Muller : — In order to reach the bottom of a deep nectary, the 
bee stretches out the whole of the movable parts of the suck- 
ing apparatus, as shown in fig. 5, except that the two first 
joints of the labial palpi sheathe the tongue from beneath, 
while the laminae closely embrace the mentum and the basal 
part of the tongue from above. When the terminal hairy 
whorls of the tongue, protruded as far as possible, are wetted 
with honey, the bee withdraws the mentum, together with the 
tongue and the labial palpi, so far that the laminae are no 
longer overtopped by the latter, and that the laminae and the 
palpi together, closely embracing the tongue, form a sucking- 
tube, of which only the upper part of the tongue above the 
labial palpi is prominent. The bee then withdraws the hairy 
whorls of the tongue, wetted with honey, into this sucking- 
tube ; and the suction of the honey into the oesophagus is 
accomplished by the enlargement of the interior abdominal 
hollows connected with the oesophagus — which is visible from 
the outside by the swelling of the abdomen — and the simulta- 
