1438 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



The mere intromission of these points, incom- 

 parably finer and sharper than the finest needle that 

 was ever polished in a Sheffield workshop, would 

 produce no result appreciable to our feelings; and 

 most surely would not be followed by the distressing 

 agony attendant on the sting of a bee. We must 

 look for something more than we have seen. 



We need not be long in finding it. For here, at 

 the base of the sheath, into which it enters by a nar- 

 row neck, lies a transparent pear-shaped bag, its sur- 

 face covered all over, but especially toward the neck, 

 with small glands set transversely. It is rounded 

 behind, where it is entered by a very long and 

 slender membraneous tube, which, after many 

 turns and windings, gradually thickening and 

 becoming more evidently glandular, terminates 

 in a blind end. 



This is the apparatus for preparing and ejecting a 

 powerful poison. The glandular end of the slender 

 tube is the secreting organ: here the venom is pre- 

 pared; the remainder of the tube is a duct for con- 

 veying it to the bag, a reservoir in which it is stored 

 for the moment of use. By means of the neck it is 

 thrown into the groove at the moment the sting is 

 projected, the same muscles, probably, that dart for- 

 ward the weapon compressing the poison-bag and 

 causing it to pour forth its contents into the groove, 

 whence it passes on between the two spears into the 

 wound which they have made. 



A modification of this apparatus is found through- 

 out a very extensive order of insects the Hymenop- 

 tera; but in the majority of cases it is not connected 



