APIS. 
331 
hollowed longitudinally and their lateral edges fringed 
with recurved liair, which retains whatever may be placed 
within the smooth and hollow surface, and the apical ex¬ 
treme edge has a pecten or comb of short stiff bristles. 
The first joint of the posterior feet have also their dis¬ 
tinctive form, adapted to special branches of their eco¬ 
nomy. These are oblong, wider than the shank, and 
about two-thirds its length, and consequently powerful 
limbs ; at the outer angle of the edge, nearest the shank, 
is a little projection called the auricle or earlet, the inner 
surface is clothed with ten parallel transverse rows of 
close dense haiiq and its apical edge has along its whole 
width a pecten similar to that of the apex of the shank. 
This shank being without spurs, which only the domestic 
bee is deficient in, gives the pecten a freedom of action 
it would not otherwise have, and enables it to be used 
together with the earlet opposite to it on the foot, as an 
instrument for laying hold of the thin flakes of wax 
upon the venter, and to bring them forward to the inter¬ 
mediate legs to be passed on to the mouth, and there to 
be converted into wax. The pecten of the foot and also 
its brush aid in their removal in case of need, and help 
as well both in the manipulation and the storing the 
materials collected. Thus, this whole structure, exclu¬ 
sively possessed by the worker, is pre-eminently designed 
for the manifold operations of the hive; and the bee 
itself and its works are but one closely linked chain of 
wonderful contrivances. 
The entire economy of the hive seems to emanate ex¬ 
clusively from the two most prominent attributes of in¬ 
stinct, that of self-preservation, and that other more im¬ 
portant axis of the vast wheel of creation, the secured 
perpetuation of the kind by the conservative a-rop^y, or 
