34 CURIOSITIES OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



or more unworthy of minute attention ; hardly does the care- 

 less eye perceive it, and yet how the detail of its structure 

 reveals the mind of its Great Creator; the same wisdom 

 planning, and the same goodness adapting, each organ for 

 the tiny workman that has given to man his more perfect 

 body. Look closely at the larva itself before we describe its 

 proceedings. Externally we observe a small black head, with 

 six simple eyes in a circle on each side, a pair of sharp- 

 toothed jaws, four little palps or feelers, and a spinnaret 

 immediately under the jaws; six true legs and ten mem- 

 branous appendages, thirteen joints or segments, and on each 

 segment a spiracle dilating and contracting as the larva 

 breathes and moves. At the anal segment there is a pro- 

 tuberance, armed with hooks, which it uses as a claw to 

 attach itself to the leaf whilst making its case, and afterwards 

 as a grappling-iron to retain possession of its tenement." 



The preparation of the Cossus ligniperda, or Goat-Moth, by 

 Mr. Robertson, in the Oxford Museum, in illustration of 

 Lyonnet's researches, proves the existence of 4,061 muscles 

 in that caterpillar, 228 being attached to the head, 1,647 to 

 the body, and 2,186 to the intestines. This is one of the 

 largest of the British Moths, measuring from tip to tip of the 

 wings when expanded from 3 inches to 3|. The larva Avhen 

 full grown is about 3 inches in length ; and when we con 1 - 

 sider that " we have no reason whatever for denying the 

 same number of muscular bands to the smallest larva, and 

 that the Coleophora in particular has need of every kind of 

 muscle in the fashioning and bearing about its tent, a feeling 

 of positive awe steals over the mind. Every kind of muscle ! 

 Yes levators, depressors, flexors, extensors, abductors, ad- 

 ductors, supinators, and pronators. We need but watch the 

 persistent action of those busy jaws to be very sure that its 

 abductors and adductors are in perfection ; whilst to twist 

 about its spinnaret and weave the tapestry of its chamber, 

 supinators and pronators must be in full play, as well as 

 the ceaseless constrictor muscles, opening and closing the 

 spiracles, and giving such varied movements to the segments 

 of the abdomen. Would the dorsal vessel pulsate without 



