First, To the Wings, which transport the insect through the air; these consist of two superior and two inferior: they are membranous and transparent, and while in a state of repose are incumbent on each other, covering the abdomen.
Bees and various other hymenopterous insects, and also those of the dipterous family, possess the power of flying in a more perfect degree than any class of animals besides, surpassing in this respect even the bird tribe. In the anterior margin of the under wings small hooks (hamuli) are placed, which are capable of laying hold of the posterior margin of the upper wings, by means of which they are kept steady when flying. These hooks are discoverable under a good magnifier.
Secondly, To the Legs, by which the insect moves itself from place to place upon the earth. Of these there are six in number, each composed of several joints, and articulated like our arms, thus affording the power of various movements: in the legs are three distinct divisions; namely, the thigh, the shank, and the foot. In the four hinder legs one joint forms a kind of brush, externally smooth and bare, but covered on the inside with stiff bristling hairs. By these the insect is enabled to brush off farina both from the tips of the stamina of flowers and from the hairs of its own body. With the jaws and two fore-feet, the meal is rolled into small compact masses, which are conveyed, by the middle pair of legs, to the spoon-shaped cavities in the centre joint of the two hindmost feet; these are surrounded by strong close set hairs, to secure more firmly the precious burdens. (No such groove is to be found in the legs of either the queen-bee or drone.) Each foot terminates in two hooks, with their points opposite to each other, by means of which the bees suspend themselves from the roofs or sides of the hives or boxes, and hang from each other, in the form of festoons, ropes, or cones. From the middle of each pair of hooks proceeds a little thin appendix, which is usually folded up; when unfolded it enables the insects to fasten themselves to polished surfaces, such as glass, &c.: they probably also use it for taking up small bodies, the pollen for instance, which they thereby transmit to the hollows of their hinder legs.
The trunk also gives origin to a number of muscles, serving various purposes, which it would lead me too much into detail to enter upon here.
The Abdomen.
The abdomen, besides various other parts, contains the honey-bag, the venom-bag, and the anus, which latter in the female comprehends the ovipositor and sting: in the male it contains the organs of reproduction but no sting, and of course no ovipositor. For a particular account of these, vide Organs of Reproduction further on.
Organs of Sensation.
We have an abundance of presumptive evidence that bees are endowed with sensation and perception, and that the excitement of these faculties is communicated, through the medium of nerves, to a common sensorium, though the latter was denied to insects by Linnæus and other eminent naturalists. Common sensation, however, does not reside in the brain alone of insects, as in that of warm-blooded animals, but in the spinal marrow also; hence it is that bees and many other insects exhibit signs of sensation after their heads have been severed from their bodies. Some insects exhibit these for a long time afterwards, the wasp for instance; Lyonnet informs us that he has seen motion in the body of a wasp, three days after its division from the head; and I have known several instances of its inflicting wounds with its sting, at least four-and-twenty hours after the separation. The severed body will not only move but walk, and sometimes even fly, at first almost as actively without the head as with it. The penetrating genius of Lord Bacon afforded him such illumination upon this subject, as to enable him to approach very near to what is at this day regarded as a correct statement of the cause of this protracted vitality in mutilated insects. “They stirre,” says he, “a good while after their heads are off, or that they be cut in pieces; which is caused also for that their vital spirits are more diffused throughout all their parts, and lesse confined to organs than in perfect creatures.”
That insects have a real sensorium or brain, would seem to be proved by their having memory, and a capacity to receive instruction, and acquire new habits. Such functions in higher animals are regarded as functions of a cerebral system. That they are endowed with memory cannot well be doubted. Huber relates a remarkable instance of it in bees, which illustrates what will hereafter be said on their having a method of communicating information to each other. “Honey,” says he, “had been placed in a window in autumn, where the bees resorted to it in multitudes. It was removed, and the shutters closed during winter; but when opened again, on the return of spring, the bees came back, though no honey was there. Undoubtedly they remembered it, therefore an interval of several weeks did not obliterate the impression they had received.” “But the most striking fact evincing the memory of bees has been communicated to me,” says Mr. Kirby, "by my intelligent friend Mr. W. Stickney, of Ridgemont, Holderness. About twenty years ago, a swarm from one of this gentleman’s hives took possession of an opening beneath the tiles of his house, whence, after remaining a few hours, they were dislodged and hived. For many subsequent years, when the hives descended from this stock were about to swarm, a considerable party of scouts were observed, for a few days before, to be reconnoitring about the old hole under the tiles; and Mr. Stickney is persuaded, that if suffered, they would have established themselves there. He is certain that for eight years successively the descendants of the very stock that first took possession of the hole, frequented it as above stated, and not those of any other swarms; having constantly noticed them, and ascertained that they were bees from the original hive by powdering them, while about the tiles, with yellow ochre, and watching their return. And even at the present time, there are still seen every swarming season about the tiles, bees, which Mr. Stickney has no doubt are descendants from the original stock.”
Some anecdotes of the spider prove that insects are capable of instruction. M. Pelisson, when he was confined in the Bastille, tamed a spider, and taught it to come for food at the sound of an instrument. A manufacturer also, in an apartment at Paris, fed 800 spiders, which became so tame, that whenever he entered it, which he usually did with a dish of flies, they immediately came down to receive their food. That insects are susceptible of a change of habits, or rather that they may acquire civilized habits, if I may say so, is shown by the domestication of bees, and occasionally by that of ants and wasps. Huber’s experiments, with leaf-hives, show the existence of this faculty in an eminent degree, for he assures us that it renders the bees quite tame and tractable.