NERVOUS SYSTEM. 299 



doned, the wings folded up in their usual beautiful manner, 

 and the attitude of rest again assumed. This whole process 

 was repeated with perfect regularity at intervals of about a 

 minute, if I rightly remember.* A more perfect act of a 

 sentient creature could not be exhibited : the head continued 

 to run about, and the body to clean and expand its wings, 

 the one for about twelve and the other for sixteen hours, 

 their energies gradually decaying, till they appeared to 

 perish, or rather to sleep. And now, I ask, which was the 

 beetle? — Where was the original creature? — Had not the 

 head and the body an equal right to be taken as its repre- 

 sentative ? — Is not all analogy between insects and ourselves 

 destroyed by such a phenomenon ? " And in the same view 

 of the subject it has been considered better to consider each 

 nervous ganglion as a separate and independent centre of 

 volition. But surely we have no authority for adopting such 

 a view, the ganglia being united together, and the insect 

 constantly dying when thus divided, instead of each portion 

 forming itself into a new being, like the planaria and some 

 other invertebrated animals. 



The nerves, as before observed, form the medium whereby 

 the notice of the various transactions of the external world 

 is conveyed to the seat of the instinctive or intellectual 

 organs. The perceptions thus obtained constitute the senses. 



* This fact apparently controverts the conclusion of Burmeister, that 

 after the separation of the nervous cord at any part, the voluntary motion 

 of the organs seated beyond the point of incision is lost, but that the 

 irritability of the muscles — that is to say, their power of reaction upon 

 external excitement— is retained by these organs as long as life remains. 

 I say apparently, because when the increased size of the muscular sys- 

 tem of the wings in Malachius, which is a strong flier, is considered (just 

 as in the swimming motion of the hind legs in a Dyticus deprived of its 

 anterior ganglia, recorded by Burmeister, and in which the muscles of 

 the hind legs are very greatly developed), the unfolding and folding of 

 the wings may be explained, without reference to instinct supposed to be 

 possessed by this remnant of the body. 



