248 Flashlights on Nature 



salina or a Brinvilliers, incongruously wedded to a 

 vej4ctarian innocent. Even the very forms of the 

 head and its appendages are quite different in tlie 

 two sexes in achiptation to these marked differences 

 of hahit. No. 9 shows us the varieties of form in 

 the male and female at a glance. Above (in Fig. 

 A) we have the harmless vegetarian male. Observe 

 his innocent sucking mouth, his bushy beard, his 

 lack of sting, his obvious air of general respecta- 

 bility. He might pass for a pure and blameless 

 ratepayer. But 1 uuist be more definitely scientific, 

 perhaps, and add in clearer language that what I 

 call his beard is really the antenme. These con- 

 sist of fourteen joints each, fitted with delicate 

 circlets of hair ; and the hairs in the male are so 

 long and tufted as to give him in this matter a 

 feathery and military appearance, wholly alien to 

 his real mildness of nature. Look close at his 

 head and you will find it is provided with three 

 sets of organs -first, the tufted antennic ; second, a 

 single sucking proboscis, adapted for quiet flower- 

 hunting and nectar-eating ; third, a pair of long 

 palps, one on each side of the proboscis. 



Now. beneath him, marked H, we get the head 

 of his faithful spouse, the abandoned blood-suck- 

 ing mosquito, which looks at first sight, I confess, 

 much more simple and harmless. Its antenn.e 

 have shortei" and less bri>tling hairs ; its proboscis 

 seems quiet enough ; and its palps are reduced to 

 two mere horns or knobs, not a quarter the length 

 of the bristly husband's, on each side of the pro- 

 boscis. But notice in front of all that she has 



