The proboscis terminates in a small cylinder c, at the top of which there is a little globule or nipple; the bee can contract this cylindrical part, and the little membrane in which the villi are fixed, into a much smaller compass, and draw it inwards. The exterior sheaths lap over each other on the upper part, so that the outside of the proboscis is protected by a very strong double case, a covering that was unnecessary for the under part; because when this instrument is in use the sheaths are opened, but when it is inactive, it is so folded that the under part is protected by the body of the bee. Withinside the exterior sheath, and near the bottom q, are two levers, which are fixed to the end of the proboscis, and by which it is raised and lowered. Swammerdam thinks that the honey is, as it were, pumped or sucked up by the bee through the hole at the end b of the tongue; he does not seem to have discovered the apertures which are on the cylindrical part, near the end b. But Reaumur is of opinion that it is used to lap up the fluid, which is then conveyed down between the sheath to the mouth of the bee. To ascertain this, he placed a bee in a glass tube, the inside of which was rubbed over with honey, and little pieces thereof placed in different parts; the bee placed the tongue on the honey; stretching the end beyond the piece thereof, she bent it into the form of a bow, and inserted the most convex part of the bow into the honey; by rubbing the glass backwards and forwards with this part, she soon cleaned that portion to which it was applied, conveying the honey afterwards to the throat by the vermicular motion of the tongue. If you attentively observe a bee, when it has placed itself on a full-blown flower, the activity and address with which it uses this apparatus will be very conspicuous. It lengthens the end, and applies it to the bottom of the petals or leaves of the flower, moving it continually in a vast variety of different directions; lengthening and shortening, bending and turning it in every possible way, to adapt it to the form, &c. of the leaves of the flower. These various movements are executed with a promptitude that surpasses all description. The whole of this curious apparatus can be folded up into a very small compass under the head and neck. The larynx, or that part next to the head, falls back into the neck, which brings the extreme end of the first portion of the proboscis within the upper lip, or behind the two teeth; then the whole of the second part is bent down upon and under the first part, and the two last sheaths or scales are also bent down over the whole; so that the true tongue is inclosed laterally by the two second horny sheaths, and over the whole lie the two first. OF THE PROBOSCIS OF THE BUTTERFLY.