144 EVENINGS AT THE MICROSCOPE. 



and in the same plane as the body ; a fact which once 

 came under my own observation. I found a Plant-bug 

 (Pentatoma) which had plunged this thread-like sucker 

 of his into the body of a caterpillar, and was walking 

 •about with his prey, as if it were of no weight at all, 

 •carrying it at the end of his sucker, which was held 

 straight out from the head, and a little elevated. He 

 fiercely refused to allow the poor victim to be taken 

 away, being doubtless engaged in sucking its vital juices, 

 just as the bed-abomination victimises the unfortunates 

 who have to sleep at some village inn. 



Well, we put this head with its sucker between the 

 plates of the compressorium, upon the microscope-stage. 

 The thread is an organ composed of four lengthened 

 slender joints, beset with scattered bristles, and termi- 

 nating in a point on which are placed a number of 

 exceedingly minute radiating warts, probably the seat of 

 some sensation ; perhaps taste. This jointed organ is the 

 under-lip ; it is slit all down one surface, so that it forms 

 an imperfect tube, or furrow, within which lies the real 

 weapon, a wire of far greater tenuity, which by pressure 

 I can force out of its sheath. It is so slender that its 

 average diameter is not more than T ttV o tn °^ an i nc h, and 

 it ends in the most acute point ; yet this is not a single 

 body, but consists of four distinct wires, lying within one 

 another, and representing the maxilke and the mandibles. 

 These can be separated by the insect, and will sometimes 

 open when under examination ; but no instrument that 

 I can apply to them is sufficiently delicate to effect their 

 separation at my pleasure. Just at the very tip, however, 

 under this high power, we can see, by the semi-trans- 

 parency of the amber-coloured chitine of which the organ 



composed, that there is another tip a little shorter, and, 

 as it were, contained within the other. This inner point 

 is cut along its edges into saw-teeth pointing backward. 

 Such exquisite mechanism is bestowed upon the structure, 



