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 a 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 



a 1 Cor. xv. 50. b N. Diet. cVHist. Nat. ubi. supr. 



c Swamm. Bibl. Nat. 1. xviii. /. 2, /, m, , o. Reaum. v. t. xxix. 

 /. 7. w, n, o, 2), 7. 



