The _labial palpi_ are, in the majority of cases, about half or two-thirds the length of the tongue, but in _Apathus_ and _Apis_ they are of its full length. At the immediate base of the tongue, and attached to it laterally, rather than to the apex of the _labium_, are the _paraglossæ_, or lingual appendages, which are membranous and acute, except in the _Andrenidæ_, where, in some, their apex is lacerated and fringed with short hairs. These organs are always present in the _Andrenidæ_ and generally in the _Apidæ_, where they usually obtain extensive relative development; but in the artisan bees they are all but obsolete, and in _Ceratina_, _Cælioxys_, _Apathus_, and _Apis_, they are not even apparent. Their use also has hitherto eluded discovery, but that they are not essential to the honey-gathering instinct of the bee is especially proved by the latter instance. The true tongue is attached to the centre of the apex of the labium, having the paraglossæ, when extant, and the labial palpi at its sides. In the _Andrenidæ_ it is a flat short organ of varying form, either lobated, emarginate, acute, or lanceolate; but in the _Apidæ_, with _Panurgus_ it immediately becomes very much elongated, and with this genus the apparatus whereby the tongue folds beneath obtains its immediate development; but this development exhibits itself most fully in the genus _Anthophora_. The tongue is usually linear, tapering slightly to its extremity, and terminating in some genera with a small knob. It is clothed throughout with a very delicate pubescence, which enables the bee to gather up the nectar it laps. That it should be called the lip seems an absurdity, for it exercises all the functions of a tongue, and it would seem almost that the fine hairs, with which it is covered, are the papillæ of taste. Its structure in some genera seems to be a spiral thread twining closely round and round, but in others it appears throughout identical. [Illustration: Fig. 8.—Extremes of structure of tongues: 1, in subnormal bees (_Colletes_); 2, in normal bees (_Anthophora_). _a_, tongue; _b_, paraglossæ; _c_, labial palpi; _d_, maxillæ; _e_, maxillary palpi; _f_, labium.]