144 EVENINGS AT THE MICKOSCOPE. 



and in the same plane as the body; a fact which once 

 came under my own observation. I found a Plant-bug 

 (Pentatoma) which had plunged this thread-like sucker of 

 his into the body of a caterpillar, and was walking about 

 with his prey, as if it were of no weight at all, carrying it 

 at the end of his sucker, which was held straight out from 

 the head, and a little elevated. He fiercely refused to 

 allow the poor victim to be taken away, being doubtless 

 engaged in sucking its vital juices, just as the bed-abomi- 

 nation victimises the unfortunates who have to sleep at 

 some village inn. 



Well, we put this head with its sucker between the 

 plates of the compressorium, upon the microscope-stage. 

 The thread is an organ composed of four lengthened 

 slender joints, beset with scattered bristles, and termi- 

 nating in a point on which are placed a number of 

 exceedingly minute radiating warts, probably the seat of 

 some sensation; perhaps taste. This jointed organ is the 

 under-lip ; it is slit all down one surface, so that it forms 

 an imperfect tube, or furrow, within which lies the real 

 weapon, a wire of far greater tenuity, which by pressure 

 I can force out of its sheath. It is so slender that its 

 average diameter is not more than T^Vo-th of an inch, and 

 it ends in the most acute point ; yet this is not a single 

 body, but consists of four distinct wires, lying within one 

 another, and representing the maxillae and the mandibles. 

 These can be separated by the insect, and will sometimes 

 open when under examination ; but no instrument that I 

 can apply to them is sufficiently delicate to effect their 

 separation at my pleasure. Just at the very tip, however, 

 under this high power, we can see, by the semi-trans- 

 parency of the amber-coloured chitine of which the organ 

 is composed, that there is another tip a little shorter, and, 

 as it were, contained within the other. This inner point 

 is cut along its edges into saw-teeth pointing backward. 

 Such exquisite mechanism is bestowed upon the structure, 



