Garden Pests in New Zealand: A Popular Manual for Practical Gardeners, Farmers and Schools — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Garden Pests in New Zealand: A Popular Manual for Practical Gardeners, Farmers and Schools
John Stuart Mill · en
The mouth appendages are as follows (Fig. 3):--Suspended from the fore
aspect of the mouth opening is a more or less conspicuous movable
flap, which forms the upper lip, while from the posterior aspect of
the same opening is another suspended appendage forming the lower lip;
this latter appendage is really a complicated one, and bears a pair
of short, jointed appendages--the palps--which are sensory organs,
while on its inner surface--_i.e._, within the mouth--is a swollen
area or tongue, an organ very greatly modified in certain insects.
Between the upper and lower lips, and suspended from both sides of the
mouth opening, is a pair of true jaws immediately behind the upper
lip, followed by a pair of accessory jaws immediately before the lower
lip; these jaws do not move up and down, but have a side-wise action,
closing and opening like scissor blades. While the true jaws are each
of one piece, the accessory jaws consist of several parts, and each
bears in addition a jointed palp, as in the case of the lower lip. The
upper and lower lips serve to hold the food in the mouth, the true
jaws nibble or tear off portions of the food and masticate it (if the
term can be used), while the accessory jaws, aided by the lower lip,
manipulate the food during the process of feeding.
The comparatively simple arrangement of mouth parts found in the weta,
grasshopper, and cockroach, as described above, is characteristic of
all insects that gnaw or chew their food--_e.g._, earwigs, beetles
and their larvæ or grubs, the caterpillars of moths, and so on. There
is, however, a vast number of insects that has developed more or less
complex variations of this generalised pattern, according to the manner
of feeding.