HOW INSECTS EAT. 



the food and placing it between the grinders, where it is crush 

 ed, prepared for digestion and swallowed. -Fig. 7 represents 

 the mouth parts 

 of the humble bee 

 (&, upper lip; d, 

 mandible ; e, max 

 illa ; /, maxillary 

 palpus; g, tongue; 

 ih, labium and la 

 bial palpi ; k, eye.) 



The alimentary 

 canal passes 

 through the middle 

 of the body, the 

 stomach forming 

 usually a simple 

 enlargement. Just 

 before the stomach 



in certain insects, 7. Mouth parts of a Humble Bse. 



as the grasshopper, is a gizzard armed with rows of powerful 

 horny teeth for finely crushing grass. 



Insects eat almost incredible quantities of food when young 

 and growing rapidly. Mr. Trouvelot tells us in the &quot; American 

 Naturalist&quot; that the food taken by a single American Silk 

 worm in fifty-six days is equal to eighty-six thousand times its 

 primitive weight! On the other hand, after the insect has 

 finished its transformations, it either takes no food at all, as in 

 the May fly, or merely sips the honey of flowers, as in the butter 

 fly, while the June beetle and many others like it eat the leaves 

 of trees, and the tiger and ground beetles feed voraciously on 

 other insects. 



How Insects Walk. In man and his allies, the vertebrates, the 

 process of walking is a most difficult and apparently dangerous 

 feat. To describe the mechanics of walking, the wonderful 



