THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



No. 125. MARCH 1847. 



XVI. — On the Reproduction of Lost Parts in the Articulata. 

 By George Newport, F.R.S. &c. 



[With a Plate.] ^J2e (^fl p \) M S 



The reproduction of lost parts in animals is an occurrence of 

 great interest to the physiologist, when considered with refer- 

 ence to the function of nutrition, or with regard to the manner 

 in which the external parts of the body are originally formed. 

 It is desirable, therefore, that we should carefully record every 

 fact that can in any way assist us in explaining the phsenomena 

 connected with it, or that tends to verify its occurrence in any 

 particular class. 



Naturalists, for a long series of years, have been aware that 

 the Crustacea and Arachnida have a power of reproducing their 

 limbs when the original ones have been accidentally lost or re- 

 moved, but, until a somewhat recent period, this power was 

 believed to be confined almost entirely to those two classes of the 

 Articulata. It was believed that true insects were not endowed 

 with it, or at most but to a very slight extent. 



Beckmann formerly noticed the existence of a leg of diminu- 

 tive size in Agrion virgo *, and Goeze a similar one in Semblis 

 bicaudata-f; whence the latter naturalist concluded that these 

 were parts which had been reproduced. But no experiments 

 whatever seem to have been made by him, or by any other natu- 

 ralist, so far as I am aware, to test the question as to whether true 

 insects possess the power of reproducing lost parts, until those 

 which were made by Dr. HeinekeJ. This gentleman's observa- 

 tions however were imperfect, as they were made only on the 

 antennse of Blatta and Reduvius. The antennae of these species 

 were reproduced, but no experiments were made on the legs. 



* Physikalisch-wkonomische Bibliothek, vol. iii, p. 20. 

 t Naturtbrscher, par. xii. p. 221. 

 X Zoological Journal, vol. iv. p. 422. 

 Ann, ^ Mag, N, Hist. VoLxix, 11 



