280 Royal Society, 



By George Newport, Esq., F.R.C.S., President of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of London, and Corresponding Member of the Phi- 

 lomathic Society of Paris. Communicated by P. M. Roget, M.D., 

 Sec. R.S. 



It has long been known that the limbs of Crustacea and Arach- 

 nida, accidentally lost or designedly removed, are, in course of time, 

 replaced by the growth of new limbs ; and the same power of re- 

 production has been stated to have been observed in the Phasmae, 

 insects which undergo neither metamorphosis nor any change of 

 habits. But whether such a power exists in those insects, such as 

 the Lepidoptera, which undergo a complete metamorphosis, changing 

 not only their form, but also their food and mode of life, in passing 

 from the larva to the adult state, has been considered as very doubt- 

 ful. The instances in which the reproduction of lost parts appeared 

 to have occurred in some of the Myriapoda, were attributed to im- 

 perfect or arrested development. With a view to determine these 

 unsettled points, the author commenced, in the summer of 184'1 and 

 1842, a series of direct experiments on this subject in the Myri- 

 apoda; and in the present summer he has extended them to the 

 Lepidoptera. The results of his labours are given in the present 

 memoir. 



In some specimens of lulus, from which he had removed the an- 

 tennae and some of the legs, the lost organs were found to be com- 

 pletely reproduced after the next change of integument ; differing 

 from the original organs only in their smaller size, and the incom- 

 plete development of some of their minuter parts. The same results 

 followed from similar experiments made on the Lithobris during the 

 earlier periods of its growth. One individual of this genus, which 

 had already acquired the tenth pair of legs, was by accident deprived 

 of the eighth, ninth and tenth pair ; at the next change of skin it 

 not only developed two additional pair of legs, but also reproduced 

 the three pair which had been lost. Some time after this it again 

 lost one of the legs of the twelfth pair ; a loss which was repaired 

 at the next change by the growth of a new leg, while those pre- 

 viously reproduced acquired an increase of size. 



The first observation which led the author to believe that true in- 

 sects might possess the power of reproducing lost parts, was that of 

 a specimen of Phasma in the collection at the British Museum, in 

 which the right anterior leg had evidently been reproduced. He 

 then instituted a series of experiments on the larva of the Vanessa 

 urticcBy or common nettle butterfly, which belongs to the order 

 Lepidoptera, and undergoes complete metamorphosis. He removed 

 some of the true legs of the larva, sometimes in their tibial portion, 

 and sometimes at their base : in the first case, parts similar to those 

 removed were invariably reproduced in different states of develop- 

 ment, and in the latter, entire new limbs were formed ; in some in- 

 stances, at the second change of the larva, when it passed into the 

 pupa state ; but in two or three instances no reproduction took 

 place. At first view, this difference in the results might appear to 

 favour the opinion that this reproduction of limbs depends on the 



