ADAPTATION FOR THE INDIVIDUAL 95 



are known as pinchers and have given to their owners 

 the name of pinching bugs. All insects with such 

 jaws as these use them for breaking up solid food. 



A glimpse at the mouth of the butterfly captured 

 on an adjoining flower will show a most remarkable 

 variation from that seen in the grasshopper. Prac- 

 tically all of the mouth parts mentioned are present in 

 this insect, and its early ancestors had their organs 

 practically like those of the grasshopper. Now they 

 are so modified and united with each other as to be 

 almost unrecognizable. The pair of soft jaws has 

 become very much elongated, and they lock together 

 in such a way as to enclose a hollow space between 

 them through which the creature can suck its fluid 

 food. Not only have these soft jaws joined together, 

 but, because they have become so much elongated 

 when not in use, they must be coiled up like a watch 

 spring and laid between two hairy lip-like processes 

 which correspond in reality to the two finger-like feel- 

 ers of the grasshopper's hind lips. 



The butterfly, lighting upon the corolla of the 

 flower, uncurls this long "tongue," and through its 

 hollow center pumps up into its crop the nectar which 

 the flower has stored in its base. When the butterfly 

 comes to get the nectar from the flower, it rubs upon 

 its own hairy body pollen from the stamens of the 

 flower and carries it to the pistil of the next flower 



