WARS Otf INSECT COMMUNITIES. 



325 



hence it happens, when they are plunged into a bit of 

 leather or the human skin, the bee can seldom with- 

 draw them again. The consequence is, that both 

 they and their sheath, with all the parts connected, 

 are forcibly wrenched out of the insect's body, a mu- 

 tilation which must prove fatal. 



Structure of the sting of the common bee. a, Terminal ring of the abdo- 

 men, cut open, and the sting and its appendages exhibited. 6, Sting 

 and its appendages taken out from the abdomen, c, Profile of the sting 

 and appendages. All greatly magnified, but in different degrees. 



The sting is articulated to the lower end of the 

 bee's body by thirteen scales, and moved by muscles, 

 which, though so small as to be indistinct to the 

 naked eye, are yet strong enough to force the sting 

 to the depth of the twelfth of an inch into the thick 

 skin of a man's hand. Swammerdam found these 

 muscles to be eight in number, into which the horny 

 parts of the sting are inserted. When the insect is 

 prepared to sting, one of the darts, having its point 

 a little in advance of the other, first plunges into the 

 skin, and being fixed by its foremost barb, the other 

 strikes in also, and they alternately penetrate deeper 

 and deeper, till they acquire a firm hold of the flesh 

 with their hooks. 



This is not all : the mere darts of the bee would 

 not, of themselves, produce any more pain than the 



