THE HONEY-SUCKER. 19 



at fig. 8, Plate II., and a most delicate piece of animal 

 mechanism it is. Any human workman would, to a 

 certainty, be not only puzzled, but thoroughly beaten, 

 in an attempt to construct a tube little thicker than a 

 horse-hair, yet composed throughout its length of two 

 distinct pieces, capable of being separated at pleasure, 

 and then joined again so as to form an air-tight tube. 

 This redoubtable problem, however, is solved in the 

 construction of this curious little instrument that every 

 butterfly carries. 



The junction of the two grooved surfaces that form 

 the tube is effected by the same contrivance that re- 

 unites the web of a feather when it has been pulled 

 apart. We all know how completely it is made whole 

 again, and on examining by what means this result is 

 brought about, we find that it is by the interlacing of a 

 number of small fibres or hairs, just as, on a larger scale, 

 a pair of brushes adhere when pressed face to face ; and 

 so in the butterfly's sucker, the two edges that join to 

 form the tube are closely set with minute bristles that, 

 when brought together, interlock so closely as to make 

 an air-tight surface. 



Fig. 9, Plate II., is a transverse section taken near 

 the base of the sucker, the small opening at the top 

 being the food passage, those at the side the air-tubes 

 that supply air for respiration and perhaps assist in 

 suction. 



The tube is probably made with separable parts in 

 order that if its interior should become at any time 

 clogged by grosser particles drawn up with the flower 

 nectar, it may be opened and cleansed by the insect; 

 otherwise, the tube once rendered impassable, the 

 insect would speedily starve, as this narrow channel 

 is the only inlet for the creature's nourishment its 

 only mouth, in fact, for no butterfly possesses jaws tor 

 bite with, or can take any but the liquid food pumped 

 up by suction through this pipe. 



At the end of the proboscis or. as it is called scien 

 c2 



