INSECTS: STINGS AND OVIPOSITORS 147 



gle as to their bases, but double as to their points com- 

 pletely around the extremity of the foot. These hooks are 

 simply cutaneous, as may be well seen in this prepared 

 specimen doubtless mounted in Canada balsam; for their 

 origins are mere blunt points, set most superficially in the 

 thin skin without any enlargement or apparent bulb. 



CHAPTEE VIII 



INSECTS: STINGS AND OVIPOSITORS 



PROBABLY at some period of your life you have 

 been stung by a bee or wasp. I shall take it for 

 granted that you have, and that having tested the 

 potency 'of these warlike insects' weapons with one sense, 

 you have a curiosity to examine them with another. The 

 microscope shall aid your vision to investigate the mor- 

 bific implement. 



This is the sting of the Honey-bee, which I have but 

 this moment extracted. It consists of a dark brown horny 

 sheath, bulbous at the base, but suddenly diminishing, and 

 then tapering to a fine point. This sheath is split entirely 

 along the inferior edge, and by pressure with a needle I 

 have been enabled to project the two lancets, which com- 

 monly lie within the sheath. These are two slender fila- 

 ments of the like brown horny substance, of which the 

 centre is tubular, and carries a fluid, in which bubbles are 

 visible. The extremity of each displays a beautiful mech- 

 anism, for it is thinned away into two thin blade- edges, 

 of which one remains keen and knife- like, while the op- 

 posite edge is cut into several saw teeth pointing backward. 



The lancets do not appear to be united with the sheath 



