8 The Structure and Special Physiology of Insects 



of the pronounced modificalions and differences in their condition: these 

 are the mouth-parts and the wings. 



Insects exhibit an amazing variety in food-habit: the female mosquito likes 

 blood, the honey-bee and butterfly drink flower-nectar, the chinch-bug sucks 

 the sap from corn-leaves, the elm-leaf beetle and maple worm bite and chew 

 ihe leaves of our finest shade-trees, the carrion-beetles devour decaying 

 animal matter, the house-fly laps up sirup or rasps off and dissolves loaf- 

 sugar, the nut- and grain-weevils nibble the 

 dry starchy food of these seeds, while the 

 apple-tree borer and timber-beetles find 

 sustenance in the dry wood of the tree- 

 trunks. The biting bird-lice are content 

 with bits of hair and feathers, the dothes- 

 nioihs and caq)et-beetles feast on our rugs 

 and woolens, while the cigarette-beetle has 

 the depraved taste of our modern youth. 



Fig. II. 



Fig. II. — Mouth-parts, much enlarged, of the house-fly, Musca domeslka. mx.p., maxil- 

 lary' palpi; lb., labrum; /;., labium; la., labcllum. 



Fig. 12. — Head and mouth-parts, much enlarged, of thrips. ant., antenna; lb., labrum; 

 md., mandible; nix., maxilla; mx.p., maxillan.- palpus; li.p., labial palpus; m.s., 

 mouth-stylet, (.\fler Uzel; much enlarged.) 



With all this variety of food, it is obvious that the food-taking parts must 

 ;how many differences; one insect needs strong biting jaws (Fig. 8), another 

 a sharp piercing beak (Figs. 9, 13, and ij), another a long flexible sucking 

 proboscis (Figs. 10 and 16), and another a broad lapping tongue (Fig. 11). 

 Just this variety of structure actual'y exists, and in it the classific entomolo- 

 gis'. has found a basis for much of his modern classification. 



Throughout all this range of mouth structure .he insect morphologists 

 and students of homology, beginning with Savigny in 1816, have hern able 

 to trace the fundamental three pairs of oral jointed appendages, the mandi- 

 bles, maxilkc, and labium. Each pair appears in widely differing condi- 

 tions; the mandibles may be large strong jaws for biting and crushing, as 

 with the locust, or trowel-like, for moulding wax, as with the honey-bee, or 



