In all cases the pollen-gathering process starts with moist pollen from the mouth region. This pollen is passed backward, and in its passage it imparts additional moisture to those body regions which it touches, the brushes of the fore and middle legs, the plantæ of the hind legs, and the hairs of the breast which are scraped over by the fore and middle leg brushes. This moist pollen, in its passage backward, may also pick up and add to itself grains of dry pollen with which it accidentally comes in contact. Some of the free, dry pollen which falls upon the moist brushes or upon the wet hairs of the thorax is also dampened. Some of the dry pollen which is cleaned from the body by the action of all of the legs meets with the wet-brushes or with the little masses of wet pollen and itself becomes wet by contact. Pollen grains which reach the corbiculæ either dry or but slightly moistened are soon rendered moist by contact with those already deposited. Little pollen gets by the sticky surfaces of the combs of the plantar or past the auricles without becoming thoroughly moist. Sladen (1912, _c_) very aptly compares the mixture of dry pollen with wet to the kneading of wet dough with dry flour and suggests that the addition of dry pollen may be of considerable advantage, since otherwise the brushes, particularly those of the hind legs, would become sticky, "just as the board and rolling pin get sticky in working up a ball of dough if one does not add flour." The addition of a considerable amount of dry pollen gives exactly this result, for the corbiculæ then rapidly become loaded with pollen mixed with a minimum supply of moisture and the brushes remain much dryer than would otherwise be the case. However, if too much dry pollen is added the resulting loads which the bees carry back to the hives are likely to be irregular, for the projecting edges of the masses may crumble through lack of a sufficient amount of the cohesive material by which the grains are bound together. On the other hand, it does not appear at all necessary to mix much dry pollen with the wet, nor do the brushes become sufficiently "sticky" from the presence of an abundance of the moistening fluid to endanger their normal functional activity. I have observed bees bringing in pollen masses which were fairly liquid with moisture, and the pollen combs also were covered with fluid, yet the baskets were fully and symmetrically loaded.