. British insects : a familiar description of the form, structure, habits, and transformations of insects. lies, and have four clear wings with fewer nerves thanthose of the dragonfly, and which form fewer, or some-times hardly any, meshes; indeed, in the case of someminute genera the wings are altogether without then the name of a former order, Neuroptera, wastaken from the predominance of the nerves, so in thenaming of this, as the membrane predominates, the orderto which these insects belong is called Hymenoptera{vfivv, a membrane; Trrepov, a wing). In the wings of thi
. British insects : a familiar description of the form, structure, habits, and transformations of insects. lies, and have four clear wings with fewer nerves thanthose of the dragonfly, and which form fewer, or some-times hardly any, meshes; indeed, in the case of someminute genera the wings are altogether without then the name of a former order, Neuroptera, wastaken from the predominance of the nerves, so in thenaming of this, as the membrane predominates, the orderto which these insects belong is called Hymenoptera{vfivv, a membrane; Trrepov, a wing). In the wings of this order we find mechanism as un-expected as that in the wing of the cricket, though of adifferent nature, and as an example we will take thecommon hive bee, so well known to all. Most of usknow also the common drone-fly, which so nearlyresembles it in size and form, and which we have seenclustering by hundreds on the Michaelmas daisy in thelight of a November sun, making the whole air musicalwith their merry hum, and the very sunlight brighter withtheir glancing wings. It will be convenient to compare. WINGS OF INSECTS, AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 47 this insect with the bee. Let us, therefore, lay the twoside by side. Here (fig. 21, b) p,;^ 2i is the drone-fly with itsbright broad wings—it seemsno wonder that the creatureflies. Now turn to the bee(a) ; four little wisps lieupon its back, aud we mar-vel how it uses them.* Thebee is heavier than the fly, f *^fl^ !^^ ^oney^bee. 0. JJrone-fly [Eristalis Tenax) the wings may perhaps be of slightly , or more than equal expanse when unfolded, buthow much force is lost by their division ? The drone-fly has one broad wing on each side, the bee has twonarrow ones. Why is this ? and how is it compensated ?Let us begin at the beginning. When our drone-flycrept from the ego he found himself an uninviting lookinglittle grub with a most inordinate tail, which althoughit had its uses, by no means improved his
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Keywords: ., bookauthorme, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectinsects
