WINGED INSECTS. '2()J) 



viscera, and furnishing extensive surfaces of attacli- 

 ment to the muscles, from the action of which all 

 the varied movements of the system are derived. 



The muscular system of perfect insects is exceed- 

 ingly complex. Lyonet has described and deli- 

 neated an immense number of muscular bands in 

 the caterpillar of the Cossus, and the plates he has 

 given have been copied in a variety of books in 

 illustration of this part of the structure of insects. 

 The recent work of Straus Durckheim affords an 

 equally striking example of admirable arrangement 

 in the muscles of the Melolontha vulgaris, or cock- 

 chaffer, the anatomy of which has been minutely 

 investigated by that distinguished entomologist. 



These muscles are represented in Fig. 144, which 

 has been carefully reduced from his beautifully 

 executed plates. The largest mass of muscular 

 fibres is that marked a, constituting the muscles 

 which depress the wings, and which are of enormous 

 size and strength. 



On examining the different structures which 

 compose the solid framework of insects, we find 

 them conforming in every instance to the general 

 type of Annulose animals, inasmuch as they con- 

 sist of thickened portions of integument, encircling 

 the body; but variously united and consolidated, 



