THE FLOWER. 1 9 



plant-bugs sucking vegetable juices were present ; whilst 

 dragon flies, some of gigantic size, with wings two and a 

 quarter feet across, preyed upon them. 



Earwigs and crickets seem to have flourished in tri- 

 assic times. In the chalk period when most of our 

 dicotyledon genera existed, we find bees, butterflies and 

 ordinary flies representing most of the modern types. 

 Mr. Scudder has even shown that butterfly remains are 

 found along with relatives of those plants on which the 

 caterpillars of their modern representatives are now 

 observed to feed. 



The point of this history is, that the flower-haunting 

 insects appeared exactly at the time when flowers 

 with honey were developed, which is precisely what we 

 would expect. 



It is probable that the original insect would remind 

 us, if we could see it, of a judicious blend of a 

 caterpillar, a millipede and a worm with perhaps a 

 special resemblance to Peripatus capensis. It was com- 

 posed of pieces, joined together like the coaches of a 

 railway train. Each piece had its nerve-centre and 

 two legs, as well as excretory and other organs. Early 

 in insect history the four or five first coaches were united 

 into a head, and their four pairs of legs became modified 

 into jaws or mouth-pieces. The first pair of jaws has 

 become united into a sort of upper lip in all classes of 

 insects. The flies or Diptera chiefly employ the fourth 

 or hindmost pair of jaws, which has become a long lower 

 lip, that can be, in some forms, greatly extended. The 

 third pair of jaws is used for grasping. The insect 

 will, for instance, seize a piece of pollen with them ; 

 the second pair are united to form a single piece. 



On the other hand, in butterflies, the third pair of 

 jaws has been greatly elongated, and modified into a 



