STUDIES IN COMPAEATIVE ANATOMY. No. III. 



THE COCKROACH. 



CHAPTER I. 



_ 



WRITINGS ON INSECT ANATOMY. 



MARCELLO MALPIGHI. 1628-1694. 

 JAN SWAMMERDAM. 1637-1680. 

 PIERRE LYONNET. 1707-1789. 

 HERCULE STRAUS-DURCKHEIM. 1790-1865. 



THE lovers of minute anatomy have always been specially 

 attracted to Insects ; and it is not hard to tell why. No other 

 animals, perhaps, exhibit so complex an organisation condensed 

 into so small a body. We possess, according^, a remarkable 

 succession of memoirs on the structure of single Insects, begin- 

 ning with the revival of Anatomy in the 17th century and 

 extending to our own times. The most memorable of these 



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Insect-monographs bear the names of Malpighi, Swanimerdam, 

 Lvonnet, and Straus-Diirckheim. 



, 



Malpighi on the Silkworm. 



Malpighi's treatise on the Silkworm (1669) is an almost 

 faultless essay in a new field. No Insect hardly, indeed, any 

 animal had then been carefully described, and all the methods 



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of work had to be discovered. " This research," says Malpighi, 

 " was extremely laborious and tedious ' (it occupied about a 

 year) " on account of its novelty, as well as the minuteness, 

 fragility, and intricacy of the parts, which required a special 

 manipulation ; so that when I had toiled for many months at 

 this incessant and fatiguing task, I was plagued next autumn 

 with fevers and inflammation of the eyes. Nevertheless, such 



B 



