312 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 
mouth, at first sight, appears to consist of a long and delicate spirally 
convoluted organ, which, when examined, is found to consist of two 
pieces, each of which is sometimes provided with a small jointed 
appendage or palpus at its base. This very slender proboscis * 
(spiritrompe, or spirignatha, as it is called by Latreille, or antlia by 
Kirby and Spence) is employed to pump up the nectar of flowers, 
upon which alone it subsists, into the mouth and stomach of the insect, 
and which, from its peculiar construction, is admirably adapted for 
penetrating to the depths of the narrowest blossoms. When at rest, 
it is coiled up, and defended by two large and compressed palpi, 
composed of three joints inserted upon a fleshy piece, soldered to the 
front of the head. The peculiar structure of this instrument had 
been long described by Swammerdam, Réaumur, and others; but it 
was to the philosophical acumen of Savigny that we are indebted for a 
clear demonstration of the real nature of these parts, and a know- 
ledge of the existence of all the organs of a mandibulated mouth in 
the oral apparatus of a butterfly, modified, indeed, as may easily be 
supposed, to such an extent, that the author who describes two 
minute fleshy organs, wide apart, and placed above the base of the 
spiral apparatus as mandibles, the two pieces of which the proboscis 
is composed as a pair of maxille, and the piece soldered flatly to the 
front of the head as the lower lip, is liable to be treated with ridi- 
cule, although the situation of the various parts, and especially the 
position of the palpi, proves them to be strictly analogous to the 
several organs observed in the true mandibulated insects. The 
change, indeed, which these organs undergo in the passage from the 
caterpillar to the perfect state is most singular: in the mouth of the 
former, for instance, the upper lip and mandibles are well developed, 
the mastication of leaves being chiefly performed by the latter organs, 
whilst the maxillz and jower lip are small and fleshy organs, the max- 
illary palpi minute, but distinct, the labial palpi almost obsolete, and 
the labium terminating in a spinneret ; whereas, in the imago every one 
of these organs is in an exactly opposite degree of development: the 
upper lip and mandibles, it is true, exist (as in fig. 95. 4. a, mandible, b, 
labrum), but in so rudimental a state as not to be of any use in feeding, 
whilst the maxillae and the labial palpi are enormously developed 
* Fabricius, who named the Dipterous insects Antliata, gave the name of proboscis 
to their mouth, and applied the name of lingua to the mouth of the Lepidoptera, 
although in strictness it ought only to be applied to a single organ of the mouth. 
