INSECTS. 
181 
of those filmy pinions boar thee aloft on the thin air, and 
carry thee in impetuous evolutions after thy tiny prey ! 
But what elegant organs these wings, now still in death, 
are ! they are like plates of talc of extremest thinness, 
through which expands a notwork of nerve-ribs, a lace 
that no collar on fair lady’s neck ever equalled ; every 
component thread of which is a tube communicating with 
the air-pipes or lungs of the body ! How appropriate is 
the term Neuroptera, or Nerve-wings, for such Insects as 
these ! 
And now we come to the “ industrial ” classes, to use 
an expressive term of modern coinage. The Butterflies 
are fine ladies that go a-shopping among the flowers, the 
Beetles arc the starred and jewelled nobility, the Dragon- 
flies are warriors, true knights-errant furnished with the 
pomp and circumstance of war ; but the humble, useful, 
ever busy Bee is an artisan — a representative of that class 
who are “fruges producers nati;” and not less industrious 
and skilful (though far from so serviceable to us) are its 
cousins, the Wasp and the Ant. The architectural instincts 
of these Insects we have briefly treated in the preceding 
chapter. 
This order is termed Hymenoptera, or Memhrane-ivings ; 
but the technical distinction between these and those 
which we have just dismissed is that these possess, at least 
in one sex, a homy tube at the extremity of the body, 
which is sometimes connected with a poison-bag, and is 
called a sting, and at others is simply an instrument for 
the piercing of animal or vogetablo substances, in order to 
deposit eggs in them. But a much more obvious differ- 
ence is found in the character of the wings, which are so 
