26 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



number of small fibres or hairs, just as, on a larger scale, 

 a pair of brushes adhere when pressed face to face ; and 

 so in the butterfly's sucker, the two edges that join to 

 form the tube are closely set with minute bristles that, 

 when brought together, interlock so closely as to make 

 an air-tight surface. 



Fig. 0, Plate II.. is a transverse section taken near 

 the base of the sucker, the small opening at the top 

 being the food passage, those at the side the air-tubes 

 that supply air for respiration and perhaps assist in 

 6Uction. 



The tube is probably made with separable parts in 

 order that if its interior should become at any time 

 clogged by grosser particles drawn up with the flower 

 nectar, it may be opened and cleansed by the insect ; 

 otherwise, the tube once rendered impassable, the 

 insect would speedily starve, as this narrow channel 

 is the only inlet for the creature's nourishment — its 

 only mouth, in fact, for no butterfly possesses jaws to 

 bite with, or can take any but the liquid food pumped 

 up by suction through this pipe. 



At the end of the proboscis — or, as it is called scien 

 tifically, the Ilaustellum 1 — there are visible in some 

 butterflies a number of small prcjections, of the form 

 shown at fig. 10, Plate II., which is a highly magnified 

 figure of the end of the Eed Admiral's proboscis. These 

 appendages are generally supposed to be organs of taste, 



1 A word derived from the Latin, and meaning literally a 

 11 Bueter." 



