14 



EVENINGS AT THE MICROSCOFE. 



wool, whose felting property is feebler still, yielded only 

 1,850 teeth per inch. And this connection of good 

 felting quality with the number and sharpness of the 

 sheathing scales, is found to be invariable. 



The hairs of many insects are curious and interesting. 

 Here you may see the head of the hive bee, which is 

 moderately clothed with hair ; each hair is slender and 

 pointed, and is beset with a multitude of other short 

 hairs, which project from the main stem, and stand out 

 at an angle : these are set on in a spiral order. Here, 

 again, is one of the hinder legs of the same bee : the 

 yellow hair, which you can see with the naked eye, con- 

 sists of strong, horny, curved spines, each of which is 

 scored obliquely, like a butcher's steel. These legs are 

 used, as you are well aware, to brush off the pollen from 

 the anthers of flowers, wherewith the substance called bee- 

 bread, the food of the grubs, is made : and in 

 this specimen, you may see hundreds of the 

 beautiful oval pollen-grains entangled among 

 these formidable-looking spines. 



These rusty hairs are from a large cater- 

 pillar (that of the Oak Egger Moth, I believe) ; 

 they appear, when highly magnified, like stout 

 horny rods drawn out to a sharp point, and 

 sending forth alternate short pointed spines, 

 which scarcely project from the line of the 

 axis. 



But there is scarcely any hair more curious 

 than that of a troublesome grub in museums 

 and cabinets, the larva of Dermestes lardarius, 

 which lives upon fur-skins, and any dried 

 animal substances. It has a cylindrical shaft, 

 which is covered with whorls of large close-set 

 spines, four or five in each whorl, closely succeeding each 

 other; the upper part of the shaft is surrounded by a whorl 

 of larger and more knotted spines, and the extremity 



TIP OF HAIR OF 

 DEBMESTES. 



