96 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 
of the same kind which it visits. Most of us have at 
some time sucked the nectar from the back of a torn 
honeysuckle blossom and approved the taste of the but- 
terfly in this matter. If the airy creature be watched 
as it lights upon a flower, it will not be difficult to 
see it uncurl this long tongue and probe the depths of 
the flower. If the butterfly be taken in the hand and 
the tip of a pin inserted in the center of the coiled 
tongue, it can be uncoiled without the slightest harm 
to the butterfly. 
Insects which wish to use for their food the juices 
of other animals or of plants do not find them so easy 
to gather. In the mosquito most of the mouth parts 
are developed into slender pointed bristles wrapped in 
a hind lip. These bristles serve to puncture the skin 
of the creature attacked, while the curled lip serves as 
a tube through which the blood may be extracted. 
If, while sitting on the porch on a warm summer 
evening, mosquitoes begin to annoy, let one of them 
at least serve to show his method of procedure before 
he is destroyed. Allow the creature to alight upon the 
back of your hand and slowly raise the arm until the 
eye looking at near range can see the head of the 
mosquito, which, by the way, is sure to be a female. 
Males in this species are entirely harmless. They 
never eat after they have grown up; that is, after 
they are truly mosquitoes. But the female is very 
