230 Mr. E. Newman's Memorandum. 



four enormous cylindrical muscles, each attached below to the 

 interior face of the sternal osteodermal envelope, and continued 

 above in a conical form until terminated in a tendon absolutely 

 attached to a ray of the wing. Take the thoracic mass of a 

 L'lbclluJa recently killed in one hand, and, with the other intro- 

 duce a pin through the aperture caused by the separation of the 

 abdomen, and it will be seen that motion can be readily com- 

 municated to the wings, by forcibly moving the muscles I have 

 described : these muscles are continuous with the tendons, the 

 tendons with the rays, and the rays support the membrane. 

 Fragments of these muscles and tendons appear conspicuously 

 in Bowerbank's figure of the wing of Chrysopa Perla, and their 

 existence may be ascertained in a moment, by pulling out of its 

 socket the wing of any cabinet specimen of a large moth or beetle ; 

 the adhesion to flie rays being stronger than the adhesion of the 

 component parts of the muscle inter se, they cohere to the wing 

 more readily than to the muscular mass ; indeed it cannot escape 

 the notice of those who examine the internal cavity of a dried 

 insect, that the muscle readily separates into flakes, which have 

 little or no cohesion among themselves. 



The shaft of the ray, or, we may say, the ray itself, exhibits 

 an exquisite, perhaps an unparalleled, example of the union of 

 lightness with strength, combined with another important element 

 of usefulness, that of partial flexibility. It is long, strong, cylin- 

 drical, often transparent, and generally tubular, the last-named con- 

 dition being, in the estimation of engineers, a most important 

 element of enduring strength. But these characters do not always 

 obtain, some of the rays in the wings of Coleoptera being merely 

 suspended in membrane, as the limbs of a Manatus in muscle ; 

 and in such instances they are neither transparent nor cylindrical. 

 Again, in a great number of instances, in the genera both o^ Cole- 

 optera and Hymenoj)lera, the rays are articulated, not only once, 

 but divided into a considerable number of short pieces or joints : 

 Jurine, who first noticed this structure, did not, as it seems to me, 

 either understand or justly appreciate it ; he called the joints 

 bullce, and he treats them simply as bubbles. It would, ho .\ ever, 

 be somewhat needlessly extending the inquiry, were I to discuss 

 the various phases which these rays may exhibit ; suffice it to 

 say, that no phase, however abnormal, throws any doubt on my 

 suggestion of their being exclusively organs of support in exactly 

 the same sense as the bones of vertebrates are so considered. 

 Taking the rays of a butterfly's wing as a normal and familiar 

 example, and an apt illustration of wing-rays in general, and 



