anthers, going from one flower to another along the spike, being all the while busily engaged in the task of obtaining pollen. This reaches its body in several ways.

As the bee moves over the anthers it uses its mandibles and tongue, biting the anthers and licking them and securing a considerable amount of pollen upon these parts. This pollen becomes moist and sticky, since it is mingled with fluid from the mouth. A considerable amount of pollen is dislodged from the anthers as the bee moves over them. All of the legs receive a supply of this free pollen and much adheres to the hairs which cover the body, more particularly to those upon the ventral surface. This free pollen is dry and powdery and is very different in appearance from the moist pollen masses with which the bee returns to the hive. Before the return journey this pollen must be transferred to the baskets and securely packed in them.

After the bee has traversed a few flowers along the spike and has become well supplied with free pollen it begins to collect it from its body, head, and forward appendages and to transfer it to the posterior pair of legs. This may be accomplished while the bee is resting upon the flower or while it is hovering in the air before seeking additional pollen. It is probably more thoroughly and rapidly accomplished while the bee is in the air, since all of the legs are then free to function in the gathering process.

If the collecting bee is seized with forceps and examined after it has crawled over the stamens of a few flowers of the corn, its legs and the ventral surface of its body are found to be thickly powdered over with pollen. If the bee hovers in the air for a few moments and is then examined very little pollen is found upon the body or upon the legs, except the masses within the pollen baskets. While in the air it has accomplished the work of collecting some of the scattered grains and of storing them in the baskets, while others have been brushed from the body.

In attempting to describe the movements by which this result is accomplished it will be best first to sketch briefly the roles of the three pairs of legs. They are as follows:

(a) The first pair of legs remove scattered pollen from the head and the region of the neck, and the pollen that has been moistened by fluid substances from the mouth.

(b) The second pair of legs remove scattered pollen from the thorax, more particularly from the ventral region, and they received the pollen that has been collected by the first pair of legs.

(c) The third pair of legs collect a little of the scattered pollen from the abdomen and they receive pollen that has been collected by the second pair. Nearly all of this pollen is collected by the pollen combs of the hind legs, and is transferred from the combs to the pollen baskets or corbiculæ in a manner to be described later.

It will thus be seen that the manipulation of pollen is a successive process, and that most of the pollen at least passes backward from the point where it happens to touch the bee until it finally reaches the corbiculæ or is accidentally dislodged and falls from the rapidly moving limbs.

ACTION OF THE FORELEGS AND MOUTHPARTS.

Although the pollen of some plants appears to be somewhat sticky, it may be stated that as a general rule pollen can not be successfully manipulated and packed in the baskets without the addition of some fluid substance, preferably a fluid which will cause the grains to cohere. This fluid, the nature of which will be considered later, comes from the mouth of the bee, and is added to the pollen which is collected by the mouthparts and to that which is brought into contact with the protruding tongue and maxillæ, and, as will appear, this fluid also becomes more generally distributed upon the legs and upon the ventral surface of the collecting bee.

When a bee is