190S 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



25 



side had been broken off. You give it a poke, and it swerves ; and some small feet are 

 protruded ; and you perceive that it is a living moth (Calocampa curvirnacula, Morris) 



And once more, you notice a seeming patch of lichen on a birch-tree. You approach 

 to examine it ; when suddenly, 

 from beneath the deceptive 

 fore-wings, a pair of gorgeous 

 scarlet secondaries are display- 

 ed ; and the creature flies off 

 to a place of security It is 

 Catucala parta Guen. Fig. 8. 



How rapid the nervous ac- 

 tion-how great the muscular 

 force, that can carry the frog- 

 hopper out of reach, that can J'^iS- 8- Oatocala parta (Red Underwing Moth). 

 display, and set in motion, so effectively, the ample wings of the moth ! 



There is a beetle {Limnlodes paradoxus, Matth.) so small that it looks like the dot that 

 we place over the letter i ; yet it is gifted with nervous and muscular forces according to 

 its need ; and we can — 



" trace in nature's most minute design 



The signature and stamp of power divine, 

 Contrivance intricate, express'd with ease, 

 Where unassisted sight no beauty sees. 

 The shapely limb and lubricated joint, 

 Within the small dimensions of a point, 

 Muscle and nerve miraculously spun, 

 His mighty vvork, who speaks and it is done. 

 The invisible in things scarce seen reveal'd. 

 To 'vhom an atom is an ample field." * 



In the progression of catt rpillais a remarkable phenomenon may be witnessed. If a semi- 

 translucent caterpillar be placed, when in motion, against the light — as upon a window pane — 

 there will be observed a backward muscular action, within the body, which takes the appear- 

 ance of a succession of wavelets passing from segment to segment, from the head to the farther 



extremity. It is owing to 

 from ganglion to ganglion 

 the muscles that set the 

 the real advance — the 

 forward movement. 



Fig. 9. lulus multistriatus. 



the nerve power passing 

 and acting, in order, upon 

 legs in motion and cause 

 backward flow causes the 

 When an lulua is in 



motion, you see each pair of its numerous legs move forward in succession with the utmost 

 regularity. (Fig 9.) 



Kespiration, and the reception, digestion and assimilation of food are as necessary to the 

 life of the insect as they aie to the life of man : and the insect is provided with organs admir- 

 ably Euited to carry on these functions, and with others according to its need. 



II. We may call the period of the insect's existence its Life. 



Insect life in this sense is made, up of four successive stages — the egg, the larval, the pupal 

 and the imago stages. 



Some kinds of insects pass through all these "rapidly, as for example, the House Fly. 

 With it, the egg stage lasts only twenty-four hours. 



* Cowper. Retirement. 



