The mouth of the animal was situated at the extremity of a proboscis some sixty or seventy feet in length, and about as thick as the body of an ordinary elephant. "'Four membranous wings covered with little colored scales of metallic appearance; mouth forming a rolled proboscis , produced by an elongation of the jaws, upon the sides of which are found the rudiments of mandibles and downy palpi; the inferior wings retained to the superior by a stiff hair; antennae in the form of an elongated club, prismatic; abdomen pointed, The Death's -- headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar, at times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters, and the insignia of death which it wears upon its corslet.'"

To-day we number four Emperors of the Abnormal Proboscis in good standing - doubles every four weeks, see?

Bearing such facts in mind, I can see no reason to doubt that an accidental deviation in the size and form of the body, or in the curvature and length of the proboscis , &c., far too slight to be appreciated by us, might profit a bee or other insect, so that an individual so characterised would be able to obtain its food more quickly, and so have a better chance of living and leaving descendants.

On the agitation of his web, the enormous spider made an abrupt move from his central cell, then with one bound, rushed upon the fly, which he folded together with his fore antennae, while his hideous proboscis dug into the victim's bead.

They can't be bees--nobody ever saw bees a mile off, you know--' and for some time she stood silent, watching one of them that was bustling about among the flowers, poking its proboscis into them, 'just as if it was a regular bee,' thought Alice.

"To a man of philosophic temperament like myself the blood-tick, with its lancet-like proboscis and its distending stomach, is as beautiful a work of Nature as the peacock or, for that matter, the aurora borealis.

I may remark, that in Abyssinia the elephant, according to Bruce, when it cannot reach with its proboscis the branches, deeply scores with its tusks the trunk of the tree, up and down and all round, till it is sufficiently weakened to be broken down.

About them frisking playd All Beasts of th' Earth, since wilde, and of all chase In Wood or Wilderness, Forrest or Den; Sporting the Lion rampd, and in his paw Dandl'd the Kid; Bears, Tygers, Ounces, Pards Gambold before them, th' unwieldy Elephant To make them mirth us'd all his might, & wreathd His Lithe Proboscis ; close the Serpent sly Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine His breaded train, and of his fatal guile Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass Coucht, and now fild with pasture gazing sat, Or Bedward ruminating: for the Sun Declin'd was hasting now with prone carreer To th' Ocean Iles, and in th' ascending Scale Of Heav'n the Starrs that usher Evening rose: When SATAN still in gaze, as first he stood, Scarce thus at length faild speech recoverd sad.

His face was composed and occupied, but his nose-tip still had the air of being the most mobile part of his face, as if it had just turned from left to right like an elephant's proboscis . I had thought him poisonous enough while he was pursuing and watching me; but I think his unconsciousness of my presence was more frightful still.