96 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 



of the same kind which it visits. Most of us have at 

 some time sucked the nectar from the back of a torn 

 honeysuckle blossom and approved the taste of the but- 

 terfly in this matter. If the airy creature be watched 

 as it lights upon a flower, it will not l^e difficult to 

 see it uncurl this long tongue and probe the depths of 

 the flower. If the butterfly be taken in the hand and 

 the tip of a pin inserted in the center of the coiled 

 tongue, it can be uncoiled without the slightest harm 

 to the butterfly. 



Insects which wish to use for their food the juices 

 of other animals or of plants do not find them so easy 

 to gather. In the mosquito most of the mouth parts 

 are developed into slender pointed bristles wrapped in 

 a hind lip. These bristles serve to puncture the skin 

 of the creature attacked, while the curled lip serves as 

 a tube through which the blood may be extracted. 



If, while sitting on the porch on a warm summer 

 evening, mosquitoes begin to annoy, let one of them 

 at least serve to show his method of procedure before 

 he is destroyed. Allow the creature to alight upon the 

 back of your hand and slowly raise the arm until the 

 eye looking at near range can see the head of the 

 mosquito, which, by the way, is sure to be a female. 

 Males in this species are entirely harmless. They 

 never eat after they have grown up; that is, after 

 they are truly mosquitoes. But the female is very 



