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Powerful curved mandibles, with two or three little teeth at the end, of a fairly bright red. Labial palpi rather bulky, short and with three joints, like the antennæ. The mouth-parts, labrum, mandibles and palpi are movable and stir slightly, as though seeking food. A small brown speck near the base of each antenna, marking the place of the future eyes.
Just above this piercing proboscis is a pair of flat, obtuse, somewhat triangular pieces, the maxillary blades or maxillæ. When the proboscis is fully inserted into the skin the tips of these maxillæ may also be embedded in the tissue and perhaps help to make the wound larger. Attached to these maxillæ is a pair of rather stout, four-jointed appendages, the palpi. They probably act as feelers.
The Buprestis has his legs symmetrically folded against his chest and belly; the Geotrupes has his outspread, stretched in disorder, rigid and as though attacked by catalepsy. You could not tell if they were dead or alive. They are not dead. In a minute or two, the Geotrupes' tarsi twitch, the palpi quiver, the antennæ wave gently to and fro.
One would have thought that she would recognize her mistake with those eight eyes of hers, which gleam like precious stones. The silly creature pays no attention. Lovingly she embraces the cork ball, fondles it with her palpi, fastens it to her spinnerets and thenceforth drags it after her as though she were dragging her own bag. Let us give another the choice between the imitation and the real.
Lying sideways, if not interfered with, the insect in a few moments gives no signs of life beyond a fluttering of the antennae and palpi, a pulsation of the abdomen and a convulsive uplifting of the ovipositor; but, if irritated with a slight touch, it stirs its four hind-legs, especially the third pair, those with the big thighs, which kick vigorously.
It seemed to him that every time he looked at them they ought to be somewhere else; always there was something a bar, a stripe, a small distinctive spot, a wing of peculiar shape, antennæ, or palpi, or spur, to differentiate them. "Where the Sam Hill," he blazed, "do all these footy little devils come from, anyhow?
Then they move the leaf back again to the original starting point, and another crescent is devoured, and so on, while the extended anterior legs, hooked on to a twig, pull the body forward with a gliding, almost imperceptible motion as the leaf is gradually consumed. Between meals, the palpi are folded flat close to the mouth, like the blades of a pocket-knife.
The spiders and mites do not advance beyond this stage. But in the true insects and Myriopods, we have the addition of special sense organs, the antennæ, and another pair of appendages, the labial palpi.
Like the others, these hasten to the red- woollen lure, which my straw insidiously keeps moving; they come from their tent among the leaves as readily as from the centre of the web; they explore it with their palpi and their legs; but, soon perceiving that the thing is valueless, they are careful not to spend their silk on useless bonds. My quivering bait does not deceive them.
It kneads the pellet and works it up with a little earth gathered on the threshold of its dwelling; it softens the mixture as required and then spreads it artistically in a thin strip on the edge of the sheath. The legs take no part in the job. Only the mandibles and the palpi work, acting as tub, trowel, beater and roller in one.
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