Sub-Class Insects. 25 
SUB-CLASS OF THE HONEY-BEE. 
The honey-bee belongs to the sub-class Hexapoda, or 
true insects. The first term is appropriate, as all have in 
the imago, or last stage, six legs. Nor is the second term 
less applicable, as the word insect comes from the Latin, 
and means to cut in, and in no other articulates does the 
ring structure appear so marked upon merely a superficial 
examination. More than this, the true insects when fully 
developed have, unlike all other articulates, three well- 
marked divisions of the body (Fig. 2), namely: the head 
(Fig. 2, @), which contains the antenne (Fig. 2, d,), the 
horn-like appendages common to all insects; eyes (Fig. 2, 
é), and mouth organs; the thorax (Fig. 2, 6), which bears 
the legs (Fig. 2, 9), and wings, when they are present; 
and lastly, the abdomen (Fig. 2, c), which, though usually 
without appendages, contains the ovipositor, and, when 
present, the sting. Insects undergo a more striking meta- 
morphosis than do most other animals. When first hatched 
they are worm-like and called larve (Fig. 24, /), which 
means masked; afterward they are frequetly quiescent, and 
would hardly be supposed to be animals at all. They are 
then known as pups, or, as in case of bees, nymphs (Fig. 
24,g). AtTast there comes forth the mature insect or 
imago (Fig 2), with compound eyes, antenne and wings. 
In some insects the transformations are said to be incom- 
plete, that is, the larva, pupa, and imago differ little except 
in size, and that the latter possesses wings. We see in our 
bugs; lice, locusts and grass-hoppers, illustrations of insects 
with incomplete transformations. In such cases there is a 
marked resemblance from the newly hatched larva to the 
adult. 
As will be seen by the above description, the spiders, 
which have only two divisions to their bodies, only simple 
eyes, no antenna, eight legs, and no transformations (if we 
except the partial transformations of the mites), and also 
the myriapods, which have no marked divisions of the 
body, and no compound eyes—which are always present in 
the mature insect—many legs and no transformations, do 
not belong to this sub-class. 
