248 I i ASIILIGHTS ON NATURE 



salina or a Brinvilliers, incongruously wedded to a 

 vegetarian innocent. Even the very forms of the 

 head and its appendages are quite different in the 

 two sexes in adaptation to these marked difference^ 

 of habit. No. 9 shows us the varieties of form in 

 the male and female at a glance. Above (in Fig. 

 A) we have the harmless vegetarian male. Observe 

 his innocent sucking mouth, his bushy beard, his 

 lack of sting, his obvious air of general respecta- 

 bility. He might pass for a pure and blainele^ 

 ratepayer. But I must be more definitely scientific, 

 perhaps, and add in clearer language that what I 

 call his beard is really the antennae. These con- 

 sist of fourteen joints each, fitted with delicate 

 circlets of hair ; and the hairs in the male are so 

 long and tufted as to give him in this matter a 

 feathery and military appearance, wholly alien to 

 his real mildness of nature. Look close at his 

 head and you will find it is provided with three 

 sets of organs first, the tufted antennae ; second, a 

 single sucking proboscis, adapted for quiet flower- 

 hunting and nectar-eating ; third, a pair of long 

 palps, one on each side of the proboscis. 



Now, beneath him, marked B, we get the head 

 of his faithful spouse, the abandoned blood-suck- 

 ing mosquito, which looks at first sight, I confess, 

 much more simple and harmless. Its antennae 

 have shorter and less bristling hairs ; its proboscis 

 seems quiet enough ; and its palps are reduced to 

 two mere horns or knobs, not a quarter the length 

 of the bristly husband's, on each side of the pro- 

 boscis. But notice in front of all that she has 



