THE MICROSCOPE. 59 



every study and in every pursuit is the quality of attention. My 

 own invention and imagination would never have served me as it 

 has but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, 

 toiling, drudging attention." 



It is the one thing which ;nakes the difference between man 

 and man, and in microscopical studies it is, beyond all others, 

 indispensable. 



Bombylius Medius furnishes a valuable contribution to the 

 best box which has yet come under my notice. The colouring 

 of the wings, as seen with the 4-inch, is exquisite, and it furnishes 

 an excellent specimen for a study of the arrangement of the 

 nervures and cells in a dipterous wing. The modifications of 

 the parts of the mouth are highly interesting. The " labrum " 

 (upper lip) " is spear-shaped ; the lingua " (tongue) " as long, but 

 more slender ; the maxillae exceedingly delicate ; the palpi com- 

 posed of a single joint" ( JVestzuood's Modern Classification, etc., 

 p. 542). Labium, very long and slender, with but faint indications 

 of the expanded fleshy lobes found in the " House," " Blue," and 

 indeed most other flies. " These insects fly with astonishing 

 rapidity, hovering at times over flowers without settling, and 

 extracting the nectar by means of their long proboscis, making at 

 the same time a considerable humming with their wings " (Ibid). 

 It has been supposed that their larvae are parasites on the bees 

 they so strikingly resemble. Without having actually traced them 

 out, such facts as I know of their life-history leave no doubt in my 

 own mind that such is the case. I have watched them in sunny 

 mornings hovering over sand-banks, the residence of numerous 

 wild-bees ; was fortunate enough to catch one last summer 

 without a net, hovering over the flowers at a spot so thickly 

 bespangled with them that I have named it " Primrose Bank," and 

 caught several wild-bees on flowers in my garden, whose flight, etc. 

 so exactly resembled that of the Bojubylii that I fully believed, 

 till they were actually in my hand, that they were the latter coveted 

 treasures. 



In mounting such slides as this it should be remembered that 

 insects have three pairs of limbs, having a different formation 

 according to different functions, which should all be represented, 

 the left side being chosen by all but universal consent, and the 

 antennae too should be given. 



The Blunt-headed Frog-hopper is a very beautiful and in- 

 structive specimen. Is it too much to hope that in time, as these 

 structures come to be more studied 7nicroscopicall}\ we may be 

 furnished with the true scientific names instead of such as the 

 above ? 



Some years ago, a large proportion of the insect slides for 



