OF HARTING. 391 



together form a tube. In many species, and probably 

 in all, the two halves are locked together by a set of 

 hooks on the inner edge of each, which fit into as 

 many minute notches in the other. With this ap- 

 paratus the butterfly is enabled to reach the nectary 

 of a deep tubular flower into which its newly-acquired 

 wings would not allow it to enter bodily, and rapidly 

 pump up the sweet fluid on which it now feeds. This 

 fluid is drawn up the tube formed by the two grooves 

 at the point of contact of the two halves of the trunk, 

 and it is reasonably assumed that an air-tube inside 

 each of the two halves has something to do with this 

 performance. The length of this trunk varies greatly 

 in the different species, in those that take no food at 

 all in the winged state it is but slightly developed, but 

 in some of the hawk moths, that feed as they hover 

 over the flowers without settling, it is nearly two inches 

 long, and in the majority of butterflies and moths its 

 length is very little less than that of the body of the 

 insect itself. The insects of this order possess com- 

 pound eyes similar to those of beetles, a short descrip- 

 tion of which we have already attempted, and the 

 number of facets varies in the different species from a 

 few hundreds to several thousands in number. There 

 is nothing very striking in the coloration of these 

 organs, but those of a few species possess a remarkable 

 property which should not be overlooked, that of 

 becoming luminous in the dark ; whether this phe- 

 nomenon is under the controul of the insect or not we 

 do not know. It is among moths, however, and con- 

 spicuously so in the males, that we find the greatest 

 development, diversity, and complication in these 

 elegant appendages, the antennae ; here also do we 

 meet with those startling facts on which rests the as- 

 sumption that these organs are the seat of a simple or 

 compound sense, of which in the whole range of our 

 own perceptions and faculties we find no analogue. 

 We shall have an opportunity of giving an illustration 



