164 
TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 
implanted in them by Nature. This obligation could not exist 
without bringing with it the necessity for, and the desire of, 
labour ; without exciting maternal love, and many instincts verging 
upon reason. The smallest amount of intelligence requires a very 
perfect organisation for its production, and so does a high order of 
instinct. Mechanical appliances, implements, tools, and industry 
are requisite to produce good work, and they are only given by 
Nature to those creatures which are intelligent enough to use them. 
The Hymenoptera are the most highly endowed of all insects, 
yet they often live for a time in apparently most miserable con- 
ditions ; and parallel instances are not uncommon in the vertebrate 
animal kingdom — for the most gifted birds can only at first exist, 
thanks to their parents ; but many less favoured kinds, like the 
gallinaceous birds, for instance, run about and take care of them- 
selves soon after they escape from the egg. 
In spite of the great differences which exist between the 
principal types of the order now under consideration — differences 
in the shape and external character of the larvae and the adults ; 
differences in the internal organisation ; differences in the pro- 
gress of development, in the kind of life, in the diet, and in the 
condition of existence of the species — all the insects of this great 
zoological division have common characters, which are readily 
distinguishable. 
The Hymenoptera have four membranous wings (whence their 
name — vpLrjv, membrane; irrepov, wing), which are free from scales, 
and they are marked with more or less numerous nervures, which 
usually do not form a reticulation. The wings, which are rather 
small in relation to the bulk of the body, are usually perfectly 
transparent. Sometimes they have a violet hue ; but more fre- 
quently they are dusky in colour. The wings characterise the 
Hymenoptera; and the ancients called them — as the moderns do — 
“ flies with four wings.” 
These insects have stoutly formed heads, and very large eyes 
upon the sides of them. Usually there are three ocelli on the 
forehead. The antennae differ in their general structure, even 
amongst the species of a genus, and, as might be anticipated, in 
families also. Their mouths are formed for nibbling or crushing, 
and also for suction. All the structures are free, and are more 
