. The animal creation: a popular introduction to zoology. Zoology. INSECTS. 105 to attack all dead or putrefying materials, aud thus aid in the removal of substances, ^vhich by their accumulation might prove a constant source of annoy« ance and mischief. Such difterences in their nature demand, of course, corresponding diversity in the construction of the instruments employed for pro- curing nourishment; and, accordingly, ^e find in the structure of the mouths of these little beings innumerable modifications, adapting them to different offices—jaAvs armed with strong and penetrating hooks for
. The animal creation: a popular introduction to zoology. Zoology. INSECTS. 105 to attack all dead or putrefying materials, aud thus aid in the removal of substances, ^vhich by their accumulation might prove a constant source of annoy« ance and mischief. Such difterences in their nature demand, of course, corresponding diversity in the construction of the instruments employed for pro- curing nourishment; and, accordingly, ^e find in the structure of the mouths of these little beings innumerable modifications, adapting them to different offices—jaAvs armed with strong and penetrating hooks for seizing and securing struggling prey—sharp and powerful sliears for clipping and dividing tlie softer parts of vegetables ; saws, files, and augers, for excavating and boring the harder parts of plants, lancets for piercing the skin of living animals, siphons and sucking-tubes for imbibing fluid nutriment—all these, in a thousand forms, are met with in the insect world, and thus provide them with the means of obtaining food adapted to their habits, and even of constructing for themselves edifices of inimitable workmanship. The mouths of insects may be divided into two. Fig. 70.—parts of the mouth of ax insect, great classes, those which are adapted for biting, forming what is called a perfect or mandihulate mouth, and those which are so constructed as only to be employed in sucking, constituting the suctorial or liaustellate mouth. It is in the former of these that all the parts are most completely developed. The perfect mouth of an insect consists of an upper and an under lip, and four horny jaws. The upper lip ijahrum) (Figs. 70,71, a) is a convex horny plate, placed transversely across the upper margin of the cavity in which the jaws are lodged, so that when the mouth r 3. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly rese
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectzoology
