This apparatus is moved by muscles which, though invisible to the eye, are yet strong enough to force the sting to the depth of one twelfth of an inch through the thick cuticle of a man's hand. It is articulated by thirteen scales to the lower end of the insect's body; and at its root are situated two glands or ducts, from which the poison is secreted: these glands uniting in one duct, eject the venomous liquid along the groove formed by the junction of the two piercers. There are four beards on the outside of each piercer: when the insect is prepared to sting, one of these piercers, having its point a little longer or more in advance than the other, first darts into the flesh, and being fixed by its foremost beard, the other strikes in also, and they alternately penetrate deeper and deeper, till they acquire a firm hold of the flesh with their hooks, and then follows the sheath entering and conveying the poison into the wound. The action of the sting, says +Paley+, affords an example of the union of _chemistry_ and _mechanism:_ of chemistry, in respect to the _venom_ which can produce such powerful effects: of mechanism, as the sting is a compound instrument. The machinery would have been comparatively useless had it not been for the chemical process, by which in the insect's body _honey_ is converted into _poison_; and on the other hand, the poison would have been ineffectual, without an instrument to wound, and a syringe to inject it. In consequence of the barbed form of its sting the bee can seldom disengage itself without leaving behind it the whole apparatus, and even part of its bowels; so that her life is usually sacrificed to her passion. "Illis ira modum supra est, læsæque venenum Morsibus inspirant, et spicula cæca relinquunt, Affixæ venis, animasque in vulnera ponunt." +Virgil+ _The sting of the queen-bee_ is longer and stouter than that of the working-bee, and bends a little under her belly. She is not eager to employ it; and from what has been said above, of the fatality which usually attends its use, conjecture has been busy as to the cause of her extreme caution in this respect. +Dr. Evans+ observes, that it cannot arise from any selfish consideration, founded on an instinctive knowledge of the danger she thereby incurs; since the common bees, who run the same risk when they sting, are ready to attack upon the slightest provocation. "Is it owing," says he, "to a consciousness of the importance of her life to the community? or may we rather ascribe it to the dignified and generous forbearance so frequently exemplified in the lion or English mastiff?"