io8 iv. 6. 



The body of an insect is made of segments, npt only for the 

 reasons already assigned, but also to enable it to bend in sucK 

 a manner as may protect it from injury. For such insects as 

 have long bodies can roll themselves up,''' which would have been 

 impossible, had they not been formed of segments ; and even 

 those which cannot do this can yet draw their segments closer 

 together, and so increase the hardness of their bodies. This can 

 be feltjquite plainly by putting the finger on any of the insects 

 known as Canthari.^ ' The touch frightens the insect, 'and it 

 remains perfectly motionless, while its body is felt to become 

 harder than before. The division, then, of the body into segments 

 has this final cause ; but it is also a necessary result of there being 

 several supreme organs in place of one ; and this again is a part 

 of the essential constitution of insects, and is a character, which 

 approximates them to plants. For as plants, though cut into 

 pieces, still live, so also do insects. There is however this differ- 

 ence between the two cases, that the portions of the divided insect 

 live for "a very short space, whereas the portions of the plant live 

 on and attain the perfect form of the whole, so that from one 

 single plant you may obtain two or more.^ 



Some insects are also provided with another means of protection 

 against their enemies, namely a piercer or sting. In some this 

 is in front, connected with the tongue, in others behind and 

 connected with the tail. For just as the organ of smell in 

 elephants ^^ answers several uses, serving alike for purposes of 

 nutrition and for purposes of defence, so also does the lingual 

 arrangement in some insects answer more than one end. For 

 it is the instrument through which they derive their sensations 

 of food, as well as that with which they suck it up and bring 

 it to their mouths ; and, when no such anterior piercer or sting 

 exists, the mouth is furnished with teeth, which so far supply its 

 place as to serve either for the mastication of food or for its 

 prehension and conveyance to the mouth. They serve this latter 

 use for instance in ants and in all the various kinds of bees.^^ 



As for a tail-sting, nature has given it to such insects as are 

 of a fierce disposition, and to no others. Sometimes this instru- 

 ment is lodged inside the body, as in bees and wasps. This is 

 a necessary consequence of their being made for flight. For, 

 were their piercer or sting external and of delicate make, it 

 would very easily get spoiled. If on the other hand, still being 

 683a. 



