S94 FOOD OV INSECTS. 



you must bear in mind are often quite different in the 

 larva and perfect states, insects leave all other animals far 

 behind. In common with them, a vast number (the orders 

 Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, and Ch'thoptera, and the larvae 

 of JLepidoptera^ some Diptera, &c.) are furnished with 

 jaws, but of very different constructions, and all admi- 

 rably adapted for their intended services : some sharp, 

 and armed with spines and branches for tearing flesh ; 

 others hooked for seizing, and at the same time hollow for 

 suction ; some calculated like shears for gnawing leaves ; 

 others more resembling grindstones, of a strength and 

 solidity sufficient to reduce the hardest wood to powder : 

 and this singularity attends the major part of these insects, 

 that they possess in fact two pairs of jaws, an upper and 

 an under pair, both placed horizontally, not vertically, the 

 former apparently in most cases for the seizure and mas- 

 tication of their prey ; the latter, when hooked, for retain- 

 ing and tearing, while the upper comminute it previously 

 to its being swallowed a . 



To the remainder of the class of insects, a mighty host, 

 jaws would have been useless. Their refined liquid food 

 requires instruments of a different construction, and with 

 these they are profusely furnished. The innumerable 

 tribes of moths and butterflies eat nothing but the honey 

 secreted in the nectaries of flowers, which are frequently 

 situated at the bottom of a tube of great length. They 

 are accordingly provided with an organ exquisitely fitted 

 for its office — a slender tubular tongue, more or less long, 

 sometimes not shorter then three inches, but spirally con- 



* Plate VI. Fig, 4, 5. 10. 11. 24-26. 



