Su6- 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 

 I'ing 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 antennae (Fig. 2, d,), the 

 horn-like appendages common to all insects; eyes (Fig. 2, 

 e), and mouth organs; the thorax (Fig. 2, (5), which bears 

 the legs (Fig. 2, ^), 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 larvae (Fig. 24,_/'), which 

 means masked; afterward they are frequetly quiescent, and 

 would hardly be supposed to be animals at all. They arc 

 then known as pupse, or, as in case of bees, nymphs (Fig. 

 24, g). At last there comes forth the mature insect or 

 imago (Fig 2), with compound eyes, antennae 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 liave only two divisions to their bodies, only simple 

 eyes, no antennae, 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. 



