NATUEAL HISTORY OF THE HONHT-BEE. 5't 



into the flesh, and being fixed by its foremost beard, the 

 other strikes in also, and they alternately penetrate deeper 

 and deeper, till they acquire a firm hold of the flesh with 

 their barbed hooks, and then follows the sheath, conveying 

 the poison into the wound. '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 efiects; of mechanism, 

 as the sting is a 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 converted into poison ; and on the other hand, 

 the poison would have been ineffectual, without an instru- 

 ment to woimd, and a syringe to inject it.' 



" Upon examining the edge of a very keen razor by the 

 microscope, it appears as broad as the back of a pretty 

 thick knife, rough, uneven, and full of notches and fur- 

 rows, 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 exceedingly 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 inequality, 

 and ended in a point too fine to be discerned." 



As the extremity of the sting is barbed like an arrow, 

 the bee can seldom withdraw it, if the substance into 

 which she darts it is at all tenacious. In losing her sting 

 she parts with a portion of her intestines, and of necessity 

 soon perishes. 



Although they pay so^ dearly for the exercise of their 

 patriotic instincts, still, in defence of home and its sacred 

 treasures, they 



