The fertilisation of flowers / by Hermann Müller ; translated and edited by D'Arcy W. Thompson ; with a preface by Charles Darwin.
- Date:
- 1883
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The fertilisation of flowers / by Hermann Müller ; translated and edited by D'Arcy W. Thompson ; with a preface by Charles Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![at their edges, form a tube out of which only the part uw of the tongue protrudes. But almost simultaneously with these move- ments, the bee draws back the basal part of its tongue into the hollow end of the mentum, and so draws the tip of the tongue, moist with honey, into the tube, where the honey is sucked in by an enlargement of the foregut, known as the sucking stomach,1 whose action is signified externally by a swelling of the abdomen.2 Fig. 19 represents the head of a humble-bee in the suctorial position. If now the base of the tongue is drawn back into the hollow of the mentum (as shown in Fig. 20), the tip {uw) is drawn, wet with honey, into the tube. If the cardines (c, Fig. 19), Fig. 19.— Head of Bombus hortorum, <?, with proboscis halt extended. Seen from the side (x 7). Lettering as in Figs. 11 and 18. which are now directed vertically downwards, are rotated back- wards, the base of the suctorial tube (at pm in Fig. 19) will be drawn back to the opening of the mouth (between the base of the mandibles and upper lip), and by a sucking action of the sides of the body [and (?) a simultaneous action of the erectile hairs on the tongue3], the honey is quickly carried into the mouth. 1 In Apidce and Feqjidcc the sucking stomach is simply a lateral fold of the foregut; in Crabronidm it is a vesicle attached by a short, narrow duct, much as in Diptera. 2 Cf. the remarks on Lmnium album. . ' 3 I came to the above conclusion with regard to the action of the whorled hairs from experiments made on bees and humble-bees under chloroform. In these, some- times if the tip of the tongue was dipped in syrup before complete loss of conscious, new the suctorial movements took place so slowly that their separate stages could be](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21900450_0076.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
