28 MANUAL OP THE APIART. 



food after we have eaten it, and the tetrible pork-worm or 

 trichina, which may_consume the very muscles we have de- 

 veloped in caring for our pets of the apiary. 



The body-rings of Articulates form a skeleton, firm as in 

 the bee and lobster, or more or less soft as in the worms. 

 This skeleton, unlike that of Vertebrates or back-bone ani- 

 mals, to which we belong, is outside, and thus serves to pro- 

 tect the inner, softer parts, as well as to give them attach- 

 ment, and to give strength and solidity to the animal. 



This ring-structure, so beautifully marked in our golden- 

 banded Italians, usually makes it easy to separate, at sight, 

 animals of this branch from the Vertebrates, with their usually 

 bony skeleton ; from the less active Molluscan branch, with 

 their soft, sack-like bodies, familiar to us in the snail, the 

 clam, the oyster, and the wonderful cuttle-fish — the devil-fish 

 of Victor Hugo — with its long, clammy arms, strange ink- 

 bag, and often prodigious size ; from the Radiate branch, with 

 its elegant star-fish, delicate but gaudy jelly fish, and coral 

 animals, the tiny architects of islands and even continents ; 

 and from the lowest, simplest. Protozoan branch, which in- 

 cludes animals so minute that we owe our very knowledge of 

 them to the microscope, so simple that they have been 

 regarded as the apron-strings which tie plants to animals. 



THE CLASS OP THE HONEY-BEE. 



Our subject belongs to the class Insecta, which is mainly 

 characterized by breathing air usually through a very compli- 

 cated system of air-tubes. These tubes (Fig. 1), which are con- 



FiG. 1. 



A Trachea, magnified. 



stantly branching, and almost infinite in number, are very 

 peculiar in their structure. They are formed of a spiral 



