458 EXTERNAL ANATOMY OE INSECTS. 



ptera, and probably in other Orders, has the aspect of 

 beino- cartilaginous and fitted to sustain the action of the 

 substances that have to pass through it a . 



The Epipharynx is a valve, called by M. Latreille 

 sublabrum (sous labre b ), attached by its base to the upper 

 margin of the pharynx, or that next the labrum. In 

 the bees it is said by Reaumur to be of a fleshy substance, 

 and capable of changing its figure. He seems to think 

 it the real tongue of the bee c ; but as it does not appear 

 to have any of the uses of a tongue, and merely closes 

 the orifice of the mouth, it surely does not merit that 

 name. M. Savigny calls it a membranous appendage 

 which exactly closes the pharynx^. De Geer has exa- 

 mined the epipharynx of the wasp, which he describes as 

 of a scaly substance, and regards merely as the cover of 

 the part just named c . 



With regard to the Hypopharynx, which Latreille con- 

 siders as a support and appendage of the epipharynx, I 

 have little to add to the definition I have given of it above. 

 In the Libellulina the base of the tongue terminates 

 towards the pharynx in a fleshy cushion, armed at each 

 angle next to that part with a short hard horn or tooth 

 of a black colour. This cushion, I suppose, may be ana- 

 logous to the hypopharynx of M. Savigny f . On the oppo- 

 site side the pharynx is closed by another fleshy cushion 

 (epipharynx?), which appears to line the nose, behind 

 those two mammillae before described s, which form the 

 internal covering of the rhinarium. 



Reaum. v. 31 /• b Organisation exterieur des Ins. 184. 



c Ubi supra. <i Anim. sa?is Vertebr. I. i. 12. 



e DeGeer ii.778— . /. xxvi.f. 11. m. Plate VII. Fig. 2. k". 

 i Ubi supra. % See above, p. 455. 



