564 [December 



when in their softer larval and pupal states. Hence the mind is insen- 

 sibly led to suppose that there is a homology between this so-called 

 "skin" and the true skin of the Vertebrate animals; and that the dif- 

 ference, for example, between the hard shell of a Coleopterous imago 

 and the soft skin of a frog, is the same as that between the hard shell 

 of a Coleopterous imago and the comparatively soft shell or so-called 

 "skin" of its larva and pupa, or that between the hard shell of a tor- 

 toise or an armadillo and the soft skin of a frog or an ourang outang. 

 Whereas the tortoise and the armadillo, equally with the frog and the 

 ourang outang, have a distinct skeleton, to which most of their muscles 

 are attached as in other Vertebrata, inside their external integument, 

 which is, therefore, in the case of the two former animals, a true, shelly, 

 indurated skin ; while no Coleopterous imago, or pupa, or larva, or any 

 other Annulate animal, in any of its states, has any such skeleton, 

 all its muscles being attached to the external integument, no matter 

 whether it is hard or soft, or of an intermediate texture, which is there- 

 fore not a true skin but a mere naked, external skeleton, protected by 

 no skin, because, unlike the soft external muscles of the Vertebrata, it 

 does not require any such protection. "Articulorum nexibus," says 

 the great Father of modern Scientific Entomology, speaking more par- 

 ticularly of Crustacea, " externis^ nee productione cutis (ut in mamma- 

 libus, avibus) tectis." (Latr. Gm. Or. et, Ins. I. p. 5.) No one can 

 look at the claw-bearing legs of a crab or a lobster, or the knee-joints 

 of the hind legs of a Cricket or Grasshopper, without being struck by 

 the great similarity of the articulations to those which we commonly 

 find in the skeletons of Vertebrata. Hence the miser that proposed to 

 "skin a flea for its hide and fat" proposed a physical impossibility; for 

 no flea, or any other Annulate animal, has got avi/ hide at all. More 

 fortunate than the Student of Vertebrata, the Entomologist is not com- 

 pelled to go through the tedious process, with his specimens, of dissect- 

 ing away the skin and the muscles, boiling down the bones, and then 

 putting them together again by artificial appliances, before he can get 

 a complete view of the skeleton of the animal which he is studying; 

 but Nature furnishes him with his skeletons in the most boantiful pro- 

 fusion, unconcealed by extraneous substances, and already set up and 

 put together, the separate bones all fiistened in their proper places by 

 their natural membranous connections, and every part perfect and un- 



