class="blockquot">The second pair of legs transfer the pollen to the hind legs, where it is heaped up in the pollen masses. The tibia of each hind leg is depressed on its outer side, and upon the edges of this depression stand two rows of stiff hairs which are bent over the groove. The brushes of the middle pair of legs rub over these hairs, liberating the pollen, which drops into the baskets.

A suggestion of the true method is given by Hommell (1906), though his statements are somewhat indefinite. After describing the method by which pollen is collected, moistened, and passed to the middle legs he states that (translated) "the middle legs place their loads upon the pollen combs of the hind legs. There the sticky pollen is kneaded and is pushed across the pincher (à traverse la pince), is broken up into little masses and accumulates within the corbicula. In accomplishing this, the legs cross and it is the tarsus of the right leg which pushes the pollen across the pincher of the left, and reciprocally. The middle legs never function directly in loading the baskets, though from time to time their sensitive extremities touch the accumulated mass, for the sake of giving assurance of its position and size."

The recent valuable papers of Sladen (1911, 1912, a, b, c, d, and e), who was the first to present a true explanation of the function of the abdominal scent gland of the bee, give accounts of the process by which the pollen baskets are charged, which are in close accord with the writer's ideas on this subject. It is a pleasure to be able to confirm most of Sladen's observations and conclusions, and weight is added to the probable correctness of the two descriptions and interpretations of this process by the fact that the writer's studies and the conclusion based upon them were made prior to the appearance of Sladen's papers and quite independent of them. His description of the basket-loading process itself is so similar to the writer's own that a complete quotation from him is unnecessary. A few differences of opinion will, however, be noted while discussing some of the movements which the process involves. As will later be noted, our ideas regarding the question of pollen moistening, collecting, and transference are somewhat different.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS OF THE BASKET-LOADING PROCESS.

The point at which pollen enters the basket can best be determined by examining the corbiculæ of a bee shortly after it has reached a flower and before much pollen has been collected. Within each pollen basket of such a bee is found a small mass of pollen, which lies along the lower or distal margin of the basket. (See fig. 8, a.) It is in this position because it has been scraped from the planta of the opposite leg by the pecten comb and has been pushed upward past the entrance of the basket by the continued addition of more from below, propelled by the successive strokes of the auricle. Closer examination of the region between the pecten and the floor of the basket itself shows more pollen, which is on its way to join that already squeezed into the basket.

Fig. 8.—Camera drawings of the left hind legs of worker bees to show the manner in which pollen enters the basket. a, Shows a leg taken from a bee which is just beginning to collect. It had crawled over a few flowers and had flown in the air about five seconds at the time of capture. The pollen mass lies at the entrance of the basket, covering over the fine hairs which lie along this margin