him to frown.

'How do you know that I am wrong, Monsieur le Duc?' replied the King;
'you have not even given me time to explain to you what the question
was.'

'I know undoubtedly,' replied the Duke of Grammont, 'for all these
gentlemen, whom your Majesty was consulting at the moment I arrived,
only replied by their silence. They would every one have hastened to
take your part if your Majesty had been right.'

The King was struck with the sense of this argument, and admitted that
he had made a mistake.

INSECT WAYS AND MEANS.

III.--HOW BUTTERFLIES, FLIES, AND SNAILS FEED.

(_Concluded from page 78._)

When the method of feeding employed by the Snail is compared with that
of the Butterfly or the common Fly, a very striking difference in the
construction of the mouth-parts will be noticed. The common snail (fig.
D), for example, feeds by the constant licking, or rather rasping,
motion of a very wonderful tongue--a tongue which, stretched out,
appears to be longer than the whole body! Yet only a small portion of
this curious organ is in use at one time.

[Illustration: Fig. D.--Common Snail.]

[Illustration: Fig. E.--Section of Snail's Head (much magnified).]

This tongue (fig. F) consists of a long flat ribbon, or 'radula,' as it
is called, the surface of which is beset by a series of minute teeth,
set in rows across the ribbon. The number of these teeth varies greatly
in the different species of Mollusca--the group to which the snail
belongs. In some there may be as few as sixteen; in others, in some
relatives of our garden snail, for example, there may be as many as
forty thousand! The working portion of this ribbon is fixed to a sort of
tough cushion, which, by means of muscles, can be drawn forward and
protruded from the mouth, where it is worked backwards and forwards with
a licking or rasping action that effectually scrapes away, in a fine
pulp, the edge of the cabbage leaf on which the creature is feeding. The
teeth serve, in fact, the same purpose as the horny spines on the tongue
of the lion, or, on a small scale, of the cat. You all must have noticed
how rough a cat's tongue is when, in a burst of affection, pussy insists
on licking your hand. If she went on licking long enough she would wear
away the skin. As the snail's teeth wear away in front they are replaced
from the reserve store which is kept in a sort of pocket, which lies
behind the 'cushion' in the drawing of a section of a snail