ENTOMOLOGICAL. 



63 



the sweet nectar is received into the insect's body, the 

 two halves, when laid open, presenting the most wonder- 

 ful and beautiful object, properly illuminated, that can 

 be conceived. Take a common white butterfly, and, 

 holding it gently in your left hand, and, making good 

 use of your eyes, look to- 

 wards its head ; then, with 

 the right, take a pin and 

 begin to uncoil the watch- 

 spring-like coil which is 

 rolled up in the front of the 

 head ; that is the proboscis, 

 similar to that I am now 

 showing you. 



When visiting the family 

 of a scientific friend some 

 years ago, "My children," 

 said he, "have something to 

 show you." Presently, what 

 they had to show me con- 

 sisted of a cigar-box turned 

 into a butterfly's house, the front covered over with thin 

 gauze, the removal of which revealed the tenants. The 

 children proceeded to feed their pets with saccharine 

 matter; and they unrolled their long sucking tongues, 

 and feasted before me for my special entertainment and 

 instruction. 



Nothing of this extremely complicated tongue-like 

 or pneumatic machine appeared in the first life the 

 caterpillar of the creature; still less in the entombed 

 chrysalis. The sharp mandibles of the mouth answered 

 every purpose in the animal's former life, which mandibles, 

 or jaws, were just as different to this wonderful sucker as 

 a pair of pincers would be to a watch-spring. Surely it 



Proboscis ot butterfly. 



