. The honey-makers. Bees. I 8 The Honey-Makers Offer a captive bee a fresh white clover-head, and of a sudden, apparently from nowhere, there appears a long brown tongue that at once finds its way into the clover nectaries, appearing and disappearing in the most aston- ishing manner as the bee crawls over the head of flowers. One watching this rapid tongue and trying to make out whence it comes and whither it goes is reminded of the peaman's game of " Now you see it, and now you don'; The truth is, it is not easily observable excepting when in use. At other times, it is kept discre
. The honey-makers. Bees. I 8 The Honey-Makers Offer a captive bee a fresh white clover-head, and of a sudden, apparently from nowhere, there appears a long brown tongue that at once finds its way into the clover nectaries, appearing and disappearing in the most aston- ishing manner as the bee crawls over the head of flowers. One watching this rapid tongue and trying to make out whence it comes and whither it goes is reminded of the peaman's game of " Now you see it, and now you don'; The truth is, it is not easily observable excepting when in use. At other times, it is kept discreetly folded back beneath the head, where it fits into the space between the head and thorax, and offers a satisfactory explanation for the peculiar manner in which these \ if^ ^^ ^^^° divisions of the body are at- tached to each other. The head is fastened near its upper edge to the thorax by its slender "neck," and were it otherwise, vv^ere the attachment more generous in size or lower down, when the bee folded back the sharp-pointed " tongue " it would be in danger of cut- ting its own throat, which would be inconvenient, to say the least! When a bee is about to produce its tongue it first opens its jaws, which are where one would expect to find jaws, at the lower margin of the face. When the bee is at rest, one looking it full in the face would get no hint of a tongue, seeing only these tightly closed jaws {J, J) and above them the upper lip {L), the lower edge of which is bor- dered with a row of short, stiff hairs, which are sensitive and act as feelers. Disturb the bee a little and open fly the jaws, not to accommodate the tongue this time, but evidently to strike terror to the heart of the Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Morley, Margaret Warner, 1858-192
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublisherch, booksubjectbees
