94 The Rev. P. Keith on the Structure of Animals, 



They are small yellow globules, about the size of a millet- 

 seed, and a single female will lay several hundreds of them; 

 but where such trees are not to be found, as in the case of the 

 transporting of the species into other climates, the female will 

 lay her eggs on whatever substance she may happen to have 

 access to. To this substance they remain agglutinated during 

 the winter that succeeds, and begin to be quickened by the re« 

 turn of spring, till in the month of May they are evolved into 

 life; that is, as kept in the cabinets of the curious of this coun- 

 try. The protruded insect is now a caterpillar of a very dimi- 

 nutive size, consisting of a head, a mouth, and a body com- 

 posed of seven rings, and furnished with the same number of 

 feet on each side. If well fed with mulberry leaves it will 

 grow very rapidly, and in the course of five or six weeks will 

 have attained to its full size ; that is, to a length of nearly two 

 inches, with a diameter equal to that of a goose-quill. It now 

 sickens and refuses food, and sheds its skin ; revives, and feeds, 

 and sickens, and sheds its skin again, and again ; and on its third 

 or fourth revival selects, after a day or two of indecision, a suit- 

 able spot for future operation, and begins to weave its cocoon, 

 which it completes in about a week. Imprisoned in its cocoon, 

 it puts off the caterpillar form entirely, and is metamorphosed 

 into a chrysalis or pupa, in which state and prison, after a so- 

 journ of about another week, it eats or forces its passage out, 

 and is ultimately transformed into an imago, or moth, not 

 adorned with brilliant colours, but exhibiting in its form and 

 structure much of beauty and of elegance,, and of an indescri- 

 bable something that seems to indicate its Oriental origin. In 

 this state it lives three or four days, occupied in the process of 

 propagating the species, and of laying its eggs ; and this done, 

 it dies. 



Division IV. The Radiata. — The fourth and last division in 

 the descending animal scale is that oHheRadiata, including the 

 zoophytes of the earlier botanists, — whose leading character is 

 that they have their parts arranged in a radiant or divergent di- 

 rection around a common centre. The division forms a class, 

 consisting of the five following orders : — 1st, Echinodermata : 

 the body inclosed in a crustaceous covering, beset with spines. 

 2ndly, Medusce, or sea-nettles : the body soft and gelatinous, 

 stinging the hand that touches them, and furnished with ten- 

 tacula. 3rdly, Corals and corallines: the body covered with a 

 shell-like or stony crust, or surrounding an insensible stalk, — 

 stirps radicata, attached, — the mouth furnished with tentacula. 

 4thly, Polypi: the body a bag of jelly, pedicled or without a pe- 

 dicle, but unattached, — stirps libera, corpus liberum,^^the mouth 

 furnished with tentacula. 5th]y, Infusoria: the body a gela- 



