The legs are covered with hairs, more particularly the edges of the cavity mentioned, in which the kneaded pollen requires to be maintained securely. In this they convey those coloured loads which are so constantly seen carried into a hive. This basket, or pollen groove, in the thigh is peculiar to the worker; neither queen nor drone has anything of the kind. Another provision of the bee's limbs consists in a pair of hook's attached to each foot, with their points opposite to each other, by means of which the bees suspend themselves from the roof or sides of hives, and cling to each other as they do at swarming time or prior to and during the formation of new comb, thus forming a living curtain. In these circumstances each bee, with its two fore claws, takes hold of the two hinder legs of the one next above. This mode of suspension seems agreeable to them, although the uppermost in the festoon appear to be dragged by the weight below. Wildman supposed that bees had a power of distending themselves with air to acquire buoyancy, and thus lessen the burden of those at the top. They find no difficulty in extricating themselves from the mass; the most central of the group can make its way without endangering the stability of the grape-like cluster. Bees are able to walk freely in an inverted position, either on glass or other slippery substances. The peculiar mechanism of their feet, which enables them to do so, consists in their having in the middle of each hook a thin membranous little cup or sucker that is alternately exhausted and filled with air. Flies have the same beautiful apparatus--hence a fly commonly selects the ceiling for a resting-place. These little air-cups, or exhausted receivers, may be seen by applying a strong magnifying-glass to a window that has a bee traversing the reverse side. The edges of these little suckers are serrated, so as to close against any kind of surface to which their legs may be applied. This apparatus may be also serviceable for gathering the pollen before transmitting it to the baskets on the hind legs. Besides these appendages and apparatus of the thorax, that region is traversed by the œsophagus or gullet (the opening to which will be found in Plate I. Fig. 2 _c_), on its way to the digestive and other organs, situate in the third part of the insect--viz., the abdomen. The covering of the thorax, with the external covering of the gullet, may be seen in the drawing of the magnified dissected body of the bee (Plate II. Fig. 1).