Order of the Honey Bee. 23 



the imago with compound eyes ? antennae and mam. In some 

 insects the transformations are said to be incomplete, 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 grasshoppers, illustrations of insects with incomplete trans- 

 formations. In such cases there is a marked resemblance from 

 the egg 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 

 antennas, 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. 



ORDER OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



Th e honey bee belongs to the order Hymenoptera ("from two 

 Greek words meaning membrane and wings') , which also 

 includes the wasps, ants, ichneumon-flies, and saw-flies. This 

 group contains insects which possess a tongue by which they 

 may suck T Fig. 22, £), and strong jaws (.Fig. 24) for biting. 

 Thus the bees can sip the honeyed sweets of flowers, and also 

 gnaw away mutilated comb. They have, besides, four wings, 

 and undergocomplete transSrmatiQns . 



There are among insects strange resemblances. Insects of 

 one order will show a marked likeness to those of another. 

 This is known as mimicry, and sometimes is wonderfully strik- 

 ing between very distant groups. Darwin and Wallace sup- 

 pose it is a developed peculiarity, not always possessed by the 

 ancestors of the animal, and that it comes through the laws of 

 variation and natural selection to serve the purpose of protec- 

 tion. Right here we have a fine illustration of this mimicry. 

 Just the other day I received, through Mr. A. I. Root, an insect 

 which he and the person sending it to him supposed to be a bee, 

 and he desired to know whether it was a mal-formed honey-bee 

 or some other species. This insect, though looking in a general 

 way much like a bee, had only two wings, had no jaws, and its 

 antenna? were closer together in front and mere stubs. In 

 fact, it was no bee at all, but belonged to the order Diptera, 

 or two-wing flies. I have received several similar insects, with 

 like inquiries. Among Diptera there are several families, as 



