NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



343 



the drop, had not been furnished to it by the 

 chemical elaboration which was carried on in the 

 insect's body ; and that, on the other hand, the 

 poison, the result of this process, could not have 

 attained its eftect, or reached its enemy, if, when 

 it was collected at the extremity of the abdomen, 

 it had not found there a machinery fitted to con- 

 duct it to the external situations in which it was 

 to operate, viz. an awl to bore a hole, and a syr- 

 inge to inject the fluid. Yet these attributes, 

 though combined in their action, are independent 

 in their origin. The venom does not breed the 

 sting ; nor does the sting concoct the venom. 



lY. The proboscis,"^ with which many insects 

 are endowed, comes next in order to be consider- 



Fig. 1. - Fig. 2. 



€d. It is a tube attached to the head of the ani- 

 mal ; in the bee, it is composed of two pieces, con- 



^ The part called proboscis in the bee consists of a central 

 stalk, or tongue, a, (Fig. 1,) and four lateral pieces, or jaws, two 

 4)f which spring from the base, and two have their origin near the 



