INSECTS: THEIR MOUTHS 175 



Once more. Let us submit to examination the com- 

 plex case of instruments wherewith the Gnat performs her 

 unwelcome yet skilful surgery. I say "her," because 

 among the Gnats, as among most of these puncturing in- 

 sects, it is the females only who attain skill in the phle- 

 botomic art, the males being innocent of any share in it, 

 and being indeed unprovided with the needful imple- 

 ments. 



Here is a large specimen, resting with elevated hind 

 legs on the ceiling, and now in alarm off with shrill hum- 

 ming flight to the window. I decapitate her without com- 

 punction, as it is but a fair penalty for her murderous 

 deeds; and, as of old the axeman held up "the head of a 

 traitor" to public gaze, so I lay this head on the glass of 

 the compressorium for your contemplation. 



And before I apply pressure to the glass -plate, devote 

 a moment's attention to the tout ensemble. First, the head 

 itself is a hemisphere, almost wholly occupied with the two 

 compound eyes, which present the beautiful appearance of 

 a globe of black velvet, studded with gold buttons arranged 

 in lines crossing each other at right angles. The summit 

 of the head, where the two compound eyes unite, bears a 

 sort of rounded pedestal, the area of which forms the sole 

 part of the head not covered by the organs of vision. On 

 this are placed, side by side, the two antennae, springing 

 from rounded bulbous bases; they consist of twelve (ex- 

 clusive of the basal bulb) cylindrical joints, which are be- 

 set on all sides with short arched hairs, but have besides 

 a whorl of radiating long hairs surrounding the bottom of 

 each joint. The effect of this is exceedingly light and 

 elegant. 



Between these projects a long cylinder, which repre- 



