198 INTERNAL ANATOMY OF INSECTS. 
higher animals endued with powers and velocity upon 
the same scale with that of insects, which would proba- 
bly have caused the early desolation of the world that 
he has made. From this instance we may conjecture, 
that after the resurrection, our bodies by a change in 
the structure and composition of their muscular fibre— 
for we know that their locomotive powers and organs,' 
as far as the muscle is concerned, will then be of a very 
different nature 3 — may become fitted for motions and a 
potent agency of which we have now no conception. 
This wonderful strength of insects is doubtless the re- 
sult of something peculiar in the structure and arrange- 
ment of their muscles, and principally their extraordi- 
nary power of contraction, excited by the extent of their 
respiration : for animals that respire but little, as the 
foetus in the womb and the pullet in the egg, have very 
little contractile muscular power b . To get some idea 
from facts of this extraordinary contractile power in in- 
sects, — extract the sting of a bee or a wasp, with its mus- 
cles, which appear to be attached to powerful cartilagi- 
nous plates c , and you will find it continue for a long 
time to dart forth its spicula, almost as powerfully as 
when moved by the will of the animal. A still more 
extraordinary instance of irritability is exhibited by the 
antlia, or instrument of suction of the butterfly. If this 
organ, which the insect can roll up spirally like a watch- 
spring or extend in a straight direction, be cut off as 
soon as the animal is disclosed from the chrysalis, it will 
continue to roll up and unroll itself as if still attached 
8 1 Cor. xv. 50—. h N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. ubi. supr. 
c Swamm. Bibl. Nat. t. xviii. /. 2. /, m, n, o. Rcaum. v. t. xxix. 
/. 7. m, n, o, p, q. 
