ENTOMOLOGICAL. 67 



moth, and the humming-bird, for the purpose of plundering 

 flowers" * 



I desire to call your special attention to this wonder- 

 ful tongue, because it is as fully demonstrative of design 

 as the setting together of the type of this book. It is 

 composed of two filaments, fastened together by a curious 

 seemingly mechanical contrivance. 



The celebrated naturalist, Reaumur, tells us that the 

 section of this proboscis discloses three small rings, and 

 that there are three canals in the trunk, and in his 

 inquiry as to whether these three were used in sucking 

 the juice of flowers, suggesting the 

 idea of the suckers of a pump, he 

 says, when taking the portrait of a 

 moth while sucking a lump of sugar, 

 "I held in one hand a powerful 

 magnify ing-glass, which I brought 

 near to that part of the trunk I 

 wished to examine; I was some- 

 times half a minute, or nearly a 

 minute, without perceiving any- 

 thing after which I saw clearly a Section of proboscis of 



, -,. .j ,. moth, highly magnified, 



little column of liquid mounting 



quickly along the whole length of the trunk. Often this 

 column appeared to be intersected by little balls, which 

 seemed to be globules of air which had been drawn up 

 by the liquid. This liquid ascended thus during three or 

 four seconds, and then ceased. At the end of an interval 

 of a greater number of seconds, or sometimes after an 

 interval as short, I saw some fresh liquid mounting up 

 along the trunk. But it was straight up the middle of 

 the trunk that it seemed to ascend. 



* Darwin's " Zoonomia," 1801, quoted in Rennie's "Insect Transfor- 

 mation." 



