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19 



NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



The nerrous system in the larva is very simple, yet 

 plays a most important part in its vital economy, and the 

 rapid and singular changes that take place in it, as the larva 

 assumes its progressive forms, is not the least wonderful 

 part of insect metamorphoses. From the lowest to the 

 highest type of vitality, the nervous system increases in 

 importance as we ascend the scale of creation, even up to 

 man, whom it allies in its terrestial condition to the insig- 

 nificant creature just removed above the range of inorganic 

 matter, and which we so often wantonly crush beneath our 

 feet, as if it were but dust or a nerveless inorganic 

 mass. To the late Mr. George Newport we are much in- 

 debted, and I in particular, as it is from his beautiful 

 drawings of the nervous system of the larva, pupa, and 

 perfect moth of the Sphinx Ligustri, that I have had these 

 diagrams copied, to assist me in my illustration ; and I 

 cannot refer to his untimely death but as a loss indeed to 

 science ; for what energy of skill, patient industry, inde- 

 fatigable research and truthful delineation could surmount, 

 Mr. George Newport's was the mind to carry out. He died 

 just as the lustre of his genius was calling forth the appro- 

 bation of his fellow-man. Although not the founder, he 

 had much to do with the early history of the Canterbury 

 Museum, and his memory is still cherished by many who 

 knew him personally as a resident in that city. 



Nerves are little opaque white cords. There are three 

 sets of nerves — sensation, motion, sympathetic. Sensation 

 carries impressions to the centre of the nervous system, as 

 to a brain like ours, for instance. As an illustration, sup- 

 posing you were to place your hand on a piece of hot iron, 

 sensation would immediately be conveyed to the brain, the 

 nerves of motion would be excited, and they would cause 

 the muscles to withdraw rapidly the hand, and the pain 

 endured would be conveyed by the sympathetic to the 

 general system, and great bodily distress would ensue, as 

 seen by the crying, the flow of tears, the heaving and 

 sobbing of the breast. When these nerves unite into little 



