These air-vessels would be difficult to show in a drawing, the multitude of hairs which protect them are in the way of getting at a very distinct delineation. The writer has traced their oval form by the aid of Messrs. Smith and Beck's "Binocular Microscope," and exceedingly interesting objects they appeared. From the circumstance of bees breathing through these orifices in their bodies, it will not be difficult to understand how sadly the little creatures must be inconvenienced when, by accident, they fall on loose mould, and thus have their breathing pores choked with dust: it also shows how needful it is to prevent bees being besmeared with honey (by using bad appliances for feeding), which is still more injurious to them. These air-vessels are the only real circulating system, as bees have neither lungs, heart, liver, nor blood. It appears, however, that a white fluid matter, called "chyle," which, in degree, answers the purpose of blood, is produced in the intestines, nourishes the body, receives the oxygen from the air-vessels, and generates that animal warmth so necessary for the insect's well-being. Bees have the power of counteracting superabundant heat by perspiration. Not unfrequently, on a hot summer's morning, a good deal of moisture may be noticed at the entrance of a crowded hive, which the inmates have been enabled to throw off. This is a healthy sign, because a sign of great numerical strength. The abdomen, attached to the posterior part of the thorax by a slender ligament, has, for an outer covering, six folds or scales of unequal breadth, overlapping each other, and contains the honey-bag, or first stomach, the ventricle, or true stomach (Plate II., figs. 1 and 2_f_), with other intestines, to be hereafter referred to. The honey-bag (Plate II., figs. 1 and 2, _d_) is an enlargement of the gullet, and, although called the first stomach, no digestion takes place here. In shape it is like a taper oil flask; when full, it is about the size of a small pea, and so transparent that the colour of the honey may be seen through it. This sac, as it is sometimes called, is susceptible of contraction, and so organized as to enable the bee to disgorge a part of its contents at pleasure, to fill the honey-cells of the hive. It has formed a subject of some controversy whether any or what change takes place in the nectar of flowers whilst in the bee's stomach. A short passage (Plate II., figs. 1 and 2, _f_) leads to the ventricle or true stomach, which is somewhat larger. This receives the food from the honey-bag, for the nourishment of the bee and the secretion of wax. The stomach, like the honey-bag, has a considerable number of muscles, which are brought into play to help the digestive and other organs. The biliary vessels (Plate II., figs. 1 and 2, _h, h_) receive the chyle from the digested food in the stomach, which from thence is conveyed to all parts of the body for its support.