GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 35 
83. The muscles, though invisible to the eye, are yet 
strong enough to force the sting, to the depth of one-twelfth 
of an inch, through the thick skin of a man’s hand. 
“The action of the sting,” says Paley, ‘affords an example of 
the union of chemistry and mechanism; of chemistry, in respect 
to the venom which can produce such powerful effects; of mech- 
anism, as the sting isa compound instrument. The machinery 
would have been comparatively useless, had it not been for the 
chemical process by which, in the insect’s body, honey*is con- 
verted into poison; and on the other hand, the poison would have 
been ineffectual, without an instrument to wound, and a syringe 
to inject it.” 
“Upon examining the edge of a very keen razor by the micro- 
scope, it appears as broad as the back of a pretty thick knife, 
rough, uneven, and full of notches and furrows, and so far from 
anything like sharpness, that an instrument as blunt as this 
seemed to be, would not serve even to cleave wood. An exceed- 
ingly small needle being also examined, it resembled a rough 
iron bar out of a smith’s forge. The sting of a bee viewed 
through the same instrument, showed everywhere a polish 
amazingly beautiful, without the least flaw, blemish, or inequal- 
ity, and ended in a point too fine to be discerned.” 
84. As the extremity of the sting is barbed like an ar- 
row, the bee can seldom withdraw it, if the substance into 
which she darts it is at all tenacious. A strange peculiarity 
of the sting and the muscles pertaining to it, is their spas- 
modice action, which continues quite a while, even after the 
bee has torn herself away, and has left them attached to the 
wound. In losing her sting, she often parts with a portion 
of her intestines, and of necessity soon perishes. Wasps 
and hornets are different from bees in this respect, for 
they can sting repeatedly without endangering their lives. 
Although bees pay so dearly for the exercise of their pat- 
riotic instincts, still, in defense of home and its sacred 
treasures, they 
“ Deem life itself to vengeance well resign’d, 
* Die on the wound and leave their sting behind.” 
