pant] THE INSECTS WHICH VISIT FLOWERS. 65 
Lepidoptera. 
If the chief divisions of insects are to be arranged in the order 
of their importance as fertilisers of our native flowers, the first 
place must decidedly be given to bees,—while the Lepidoptera take 
only the second or third place, before or after the Flies. But if, 
as here, we base our arrangement on the degrees of adaptation to 
flowers, they undoubtedly take the first place, as the only order 
which throughout, and not only in certain of its families, is fitted 
for obtaining honey. 
In the perfect state, butterflies, so far as they take food at all, 
which is not the case in all species, restrict themselves almost 
entirely to honey ; and since they take no further thought for their 
young than to lay their eggs sufficiently concealed upon the food- 
plant, their mouth-parts have been quite free to adapt themselves 
to the easy winning of honey from the most various flowers. This 
adaptation is attained by an astonishing development of the 
maxillary laminz, with suppression of the greater part of the 
rest of the mouth-organs. The upper lip, or labrum (/dr, 2, 
Fig. 22), and mandibles (md) are aborted. The laminz of the 
maxille are transformed into two immensely long, hollow, rounded 
filaments, provided with semicircular grooves on their inner sur- 
faces, and so forming a tube when placed in close apposition; in 
the state of rest this tube is spirally coiled, and concealed between 
the labial palps. The maxillary palps, which are not visible in my 
figure, and also the labium, are usually more or less abortive. The 
whole mechanism of the mouth, so complex and many-jointed in 
bees, is thus here reduced to a long, thin, suctorial tube formed of 
two apposed grooves and capable of being rolled up into small 
space, and of a protective covering for this tube. 
_ With this simple mechanism, Lepidoptera are able to probe 
the most various flowers, whether flat or long and tubular, and 
to secure their honey. Peculiar stiff, sharp-pointed appendages 
at the ends of the lamine (5, Fig. 22) enable them also to tear 
open delicate succulent tissues, and make use of the sap in flowers 
which secrete no free honey (cf. Cytisus Laburnum, Erythrea 
Centaurium, Carum, etc.). At the Cape of Good Hope, Lepidoptera 
do damage to plums and peaches by piercing their skins in this 
manner.! In Queensland also, the oranges are injured by a 
nocturnal form, Ophideres fullonica, the powerful teeth on whose 
1 Ann. and Mag. of N. H., September, 1869, 
r 
