A ROMANCE OF ANATOMY 171 



fully that nothing will induce her to strike with it 

 except when it is to be turned against a royal foe, 

 is otherwise little else than a harmless piece of 

 domestic furniture. But the sting of the valorous 

 worker-bee, seen under a microscope, is a positively 

 terrifying engine of destruction. Popular science 

 generally describes it as a sheath containing a 

 barbed and poisonous dart; and the trite com- 

 parison is always made of the bee's sting with the 

 finest sewing-needle, the latter being likened to a 

 rough bar of iron. The idea of a sheath is pure 

 fiction, as a little painstaking examination will soon 

 reveal. 



The bee's sting is made up of three separate 

 lances, each with a barbed edge, and each 

 capable of being thrust forward independently of 

 the others. The central and broader lance has a 

 hollow face, furnished at each side with a rail, or 

 beading, which runs its whole length. On the 

 back of each of the other two lances there is a 

 longitudinal groove, and into these grooves fit the 

 raised headings of the central lancet. Thus the 

 sting is like a sword with three blades — united, 

 but sliding upon one another — the barbed points 

 of which continue to advance alternately into the 

 wound, going ever deeper and deeper of their own 

 malice aforethought after the initial thrust is made. 

 It is a device of war, compared to which the 

 explosive bullet is but a clumsy brutality. Yet 

 this is not all. To make its death-dealing powers 



