. British insects : a familiar description of the form, structure, habits, and transformations of insects. -bed sends out a host of red-legged Bees, the same Bees issuing from the hollyhock are laden with white pollen, and others carry home a store of gold. This flattened form of the tarsus, existing more or less in all Bees, does not however always indicate that each Bee is a pollen bearer, nor does the absence of its pollen-bearing accessories prove a Bee to be one which lays up no stores. Thus in the male or drone of the Hive Bee, which takes no part in the collection of provisions, the fir
. British insects : a familiar description of the form, structure, habits, and transformations of insects. -bed sends out a host of red-legged Bees, the same Bees issuing from the hollyhock are laden with white pollen, and others carry home a store of gold. This flattened form of the tarsus, existing more or less in all Bees, does not however always indicate that each Bee is a pollen bearer, nor does the absence of its pollen-bearing accessories prove a Bee to be one which lays up no stores. Thus in the male or drone of the Hive Bee, which takes no part in the collection of provisions, the first tarsaljointisremarkablylargeand flat in proportion to the rest of the tarsus, but it is not hollowed and fringed on the outer side like that of the worker. In the parasitic Bees the flattening of the joint is observable though not conspicuous, and there are, as might 1, Eind leg of Andrena;^^ expected, no pollen-bearing ap- 2, £Mccra;3, A^o?nada pendages; while in others (some of(ParasiticBee). \ +1, • . i the bolitary Bees) their place is supplied by a series of brushes under the abdomen, or by. HYMENOPTERA.—ACULEATA. 223 pollen-baskets in the tliighs and at the base of the Bees, known as builders and storers of provisions,are apparently without any contrivance of the kind, pre-senting one more of the countless paradoxes which ariseon all sides in the investigation of nature. The front legs of the Bees are furnished with a beau-tiful contrivance for the care and dressing of the is a comb-like moveable spur which grows at theend of the tibia, and closes down over a notch in thetarsus just deep enough to embrace the antenna. TheBees may be seen drawing their anteunte through theselittle notches again and again, cleansing them from dustand dirt, and even, when first emerged from the pupa,stripping off a membrane with which they are occa-sionally invested. Setting aside for the moment all arrangement foundedon structure. Bees may be distinguished
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Keywords: ., bookauthorme, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectinsects
