152 THE FARMER AT HOME. 



some of them can be acclimated, or made to flourish on the foreign 

 soil. 



EXUVIAE. Formed from exure, to put ofT, to divest; in Physi- 

 ology, transient parts of certain animals, which they put off, or lay 

 down, and assume new ones. Such, especially, are the skins or 

 sloughs of serpents, shells of lobsters, and the like ; which are annu- 

 ally changed, and renewed in the spring. The outer integument of 

 the body, which in man and other large animals is so durably fixed 

 on the body, is in many of the animals of the reptile kind much more 

 loosely fixed, and is changeable several times during the period of 

 their lives. The serpent kind all shift their skins several times in 

 their lives, and the water-newt has been lately observed to do the 

 same ; but no creature in the world does it so often as the caterpillar, 

 almost every species of these insects throwing off their old skin once 

 in ten or twelve days, or less ; and this in such a manner as is ex- 

 tremely worthy of an attentive observation. Malpighi observed that 

 the common silk-worm changed its skin four times during its continu- 

 ance in that state, the first of these changes happening at eleven or 

 twelve days from its appearance from the egg, and the others at the 

 distance of five or six days each ; and probably the rest of the cater- 

 pillar kind observe nearly the same periods. 



Neither is this change of the skin confined to the few creatures 

 we have mentioned ; but among the whole insect class, the most 

 numerous of that of all animated beings we know, there is scarcely 

 one species, every individual of which does not throw off its skin, once 

 at least, before it arrives at its full growth. The term changing the 

 skin is scarcely expressive enough for this operation in the caterpillar 

 kinds ; for the creature throws off the external covering of even the 

 minutest part and organ of its body, and the skins they thus deposit 

 have so much the appearance of a complete insect, that they are very 

 often mistaken for such, presenting us with every thing that we see 

 in the external appearance of the living animal. 



EYE. In anatomy, the organ of sight, or that part of the body 

 whereby visible objects are represented to the mind. The term eye 

 is used in a great variety of senses. In architecture, it signifies an 

 aperture at the top of a dome, also the centre of a volute ; in agricul- 

 ture, it means either a little bud or shoot, ingrafted into a tree, or the 

 part of a potato cut off for seed ; and in printing it is used for the 

 graving in relievo on the top of the letter. In a symbolical sense, 

 there is no term of which so much use is made to denote the opera- 

 tions of the understanding and the affections. 



EYELID. The eyelid is the external covering of the eye. Its 

 peculiar adaptation to its proper offices cannot be sufficiently admired. 

 It forms the cover which closes the eye during sleep, when it remains 

 motionless for hours ; it serves the purpose of wiping and cleansing 

 the ball of the eye, as well as moistening it by spreading the tears 



