MISCELLAXEOUS PAPEKS. 



259 



-J '^ ^ o 



sting with Lancets drawn one side, cross-section of Sting and a Lancet, much magnified. 



c— Poison sack. e, e— Valves. /i— Hollow in awl. 



7>i— Tube from sack to reservoir, o, o— Opening from hollow in i", i— Hollows in lancets. 

 5— Reservoir. lancet. t, <— Ilidges in awl. 



a— Awl. w, M— Barbs. «'— Groove in lancet. 



&, 6— Lancets. 



the organ is used. Near the base of each lancet is a beautiful valvular organ 

 (Fig. e, e). The hollow inside the lancets (Fig. i, i), unlike that of the awl, is 

 useful. It opens anteriorly, in front of the first six barbs (Fig. o, o), as shown 

 by Mr. Hyatt, and posteriorly just back of the valves into the central tube 

 (Fig. n), and through it into the reservoir (Fig. 5). The poison then can pass 

 either through the hollow lancets (Fig. i, i) or through the central tube (Fig. n) 

 between the three spears. 



The lancets are held to the central piece by projections (Fig. t, t) from the 

 latter, which fit into corresponding grooves (Fig. ^') of the lancets. In the 

 figure the lancets are moved one side to show the barbs and the valves. Xor- 

 mally they are held close together, and thus form the tube (Fig. n). 



The parts of the sting are moved by muscles connecting the bases of the 

 parts and extending from the parts to the large chitinous supiwrts (fig. d). 

 The fact that muscles connect the various parts, and the muscular character 

 of the sack, explain how a sting may act, even after the bee is apparently life- 

 less, or what is even more wonderful, after it has been extracted from the bee. 

 The barbs hold one lancet as a fulcrum for the other, and so long as the mus- 

 cles are excitable so long is a thrust possible. Thus I have known a bee dead 

 for hours to sting. A wasp, dead more than a day, with the abdomen cut off, 

 made a painful thrust and stings extracted for several minutes could still bring 

 tears by their entering the flesh. 



In stinging, the awl first pierces, then the lancets follow. As the lancets 

 push in, the valves close the central tube, when the poison is driven through 

 the lancets themselves and comes out by the openings near the barbs (Fig. 0, 0). 

 The drop of poison which we see on the sting when the bee is slightly irritated, 

 as by jarring the hive on a cold day, is pushed througli the central opening by 

 the muscular contraction of the sac attendant upon the elevation of the abdo- 

 men, and extrusion of the sting. 



Darwin suggests that bees and wasps may have been developed from saw- 

 flies, and that the barbs on the sting are the old-time saws, transformed into 

 barbs. 



