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Updated: June 22, 2025
In the case of one of these species the intermediate forms which lead from the Nauplius to the Prawn, have been discovered in a nearly continuous series. Within the third pair of feet, powerful mandibles are developed.
The Osmiae have a strange way of declaring their passion: with that fearsome gnashing of their mandibles, the lovers look as though they meant to devour each other. It suggests the thumps affected by our yokels in their moments of gallantry. The ingenious idyll is soon over.
So with the mouths of insects, we have only to suppose that their common progenitor had an upper lip, mandibles, and two pair of maxillæ, these parts being perhaps very simple in form; and then natural selection, acting on some originally created form, will account for the infinite diversity in structure and function of the mouths of insects.
When the head and neck are filled with cotton quite to your liking, close the bill as in nature. A little bit of bees' wax at the point of it will keep the mandibles in their proper place. A needle must be stuck into the lower mandible perpendicularly. You will shortly see the use of it.
As soon as equilibrium is restored, the favourite posture, that of the horizontal lever, is resumed, perhaps the mandibles, like the bird's toes, possess the faculty of gripping tighter in proportion to the rocking of the wind. All grip a stalk with their mandibles and sleep with their bodies outstretched and their legs folded back.
At some given signal, however, I never could ascertain what, they rush out by hundreds, and the sound of their mandibles cutting grass into lengths may be heard like a gentle wind murmuring through the leaves of the trees. They drag these pieces to the doors of their abodes, and after some hours' toil leave off work, and many of the bits of grass may be seen collected around the orifice.
Here then is a fascinating problem: either the victims deposited by the mother are dead, and desiccation or putrefaction attacks them promptly, or else they are living, as indeed the larvae require; but then "what will become of this fragile creature, which a mere nothing will destroy, shut in the narrow chamber of the burrow among vigorous beetles, for weeks on end working their long spurred legs; or at grips with a monstrous caterpillar making play with its flanks and mandibles, rolling and unrolling its tortuous folds?"
The month is armed with a very powerful pair of mandibles, and the tail with a sting even larger and more venomous than that of the hornet. These carpenter bees are exceedingly destructive, as they bore holes in beams and posts, in which they lay their eggs, the larvae of which when hatched greedily feed upon the timber.
So with the mouths of insects, we have only to suppose that their common progenitor had an upper lip, mandibles, and two pairs of maxillae, these parts being perhaps very simple in form; and then natural selection will account for the infinite diversity in structure and function of the mouths of insects.
When at rest, the larva is like a bow bending round at one point. It is made up of thirteen segments, including the head. This head, which is very small compared with the rest of the body, displays no mouth-part under the lens; at most you see a faint red streak, which calls for the microscope. You then distinguish two delicate mandibles, very short and fashioned into a sharp point.
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