18 TREATISE ON THE 
form, together with the labium or upper lip 
the complicated apparatus of the proboscis. 
This organ, beautiful in its construction, 
and admirably adapted to its end, serving to 
the insect the purpose of extracting the juices 
secreted in the nectaries of flowers, consists, 
principally of a long slender piece, named, 
by entomologists, the ligula, and erroneous- 
ly, though, considering its position and use, 
not unnaturally regarded as the tongue. It 
is, strictly speaking, formed by a prolonga- 
tion of the lower lip. Itis not tubular, as 
has been supposed, but solid throughout, 
consisting of a close succession of cartilagi- 
nous rings, above forty in number, each of 
which is fringed with very minute hairs, 
and having also a small tuft of hair at its 
extremity. Itisof a flattish form, and about 
the thickness of a human hair, and, from its 
cartilaginous structure, capable of being ea- 
sily moved in all directions, rolling from side 
to side, and lapping or licking up, by the aid 
of the hairy fringes, whatever adheres to it. 
It is, probably, by muscular motion, that the 
