PARTS OF ANIMALS, IV. vi. 



increase their hardness by closing up the insections. 

 This is obvious if you touch them — e.g. the insects 

 called Canthari (dung-beetles) are frightened when 

 touched and become motionless, and their bodies 

 become hard. But also it is necessarif for them to 

 be insected, for it is of their essential being to have 

 numerous sources of control ; and herein they re- 

 semble plants. Plants can live when they are cut 

 up ; so can insects. There is a difference, however, 

 for whereas the period of survival of a divided insect 

 is limited, a plant can attain the perfection of its 

 nature when divided, and so two plants or more come 

 out of one. 



Some of the insects have a sting as well, for defence 

 against attackers. In some the sting is in front, by 

 the tongue ; in others it is behind at the tail-end. 

 Consider the elephant's trunk : this is its organ of 

 smell ; but the elephant uses it as a means of exert- 

 ing force as well as for the purposes of nutrition. 

 Compare with this the sting of insects : when, as in 

 some of them, it is ranged alongside the tongue, not 

 only do they get their sensation of the food by means 

 of it, but they also pick up the food with it and convey 

 it to the mouth. Those which have no sting in front 

 have teeth ; which some of them use for eating, 

 others for picking up the food and conveying it to the 

 mouth, as do the ants and the whole tribe of bees. 

 Those that have a sting at the back are fierce crea- 

 tures and the sting serves them as a weapon. Some- 

 times the sting is well inside the body, as in bees and 

 wasps. This is because they are winged, and a deli- 

 cate sting on the outside of the body would be easily 

 destroyed ; on the other hand, a thick one such as 

 scorpions have would weigh them down. Scorpions 



, 345 



