on the Wing-Rays of Insects. 231 



seeing how strong and tough these are in life, and how frail and 

 fragile after death, it becomes a source of much interest to know 

 tliat they possess what might be called a special vitality, the con- 

 tinuance and co-existence of which with the insect's life is pro- 

 vided for by an organization of t!ie most elaborate and beautiful 

 character, an organization unsurpassed in nature for its minute 

 and wonderful peifection: unlike the delicate membrane they 

 support, the rays are -traversed, vivified and invigorated by the 

 permeation of air and blood throughout their central channels. 

 Mr. Bowerbank, in an admirable memoir published in the third 

 volume of the Entomological Magazine, corroborating Oken's 

 subsequent observation, but leaving his hypothesis untouched, has 

 shown us that large annulated tracheae traverse the entire length 

 of the cavity of the wing-rays, in Hcmerohius Perla, often occupy- 

 ing three-fourths, and sometimes four-fifths, of the central chan- 

 nel ; and he watched the blood flowing around these air-tubes, 

 between their external surface and the interior wall of the ray 

 itself. Now, since neither the air nor blood, which thus in company 

 traverse the rayS, escapes into the membrane of the wing or else- 

 where, but is strictly confined in its course to the interior of the 

 rays, it seems reasonable to conclude that its office, in connexion 

 with the rays, is only that of maintaining them in a state of per- 

 fect health and vigour, in a word, of preserving them in the 

 exact state best adapted to the due performance of the functions 

 assigned to them. It would not, I believe, be difficult to show 

 that the wing-bones of birds and bats are permeated by air and 

 blood in a similar manner, and probably for a similar purpose, 

 and that they undergo a continual process of renovation through 

 the instrumentality of at least one of these elements. It is, 

 therefore, as strictly in accordance with inductive philosophy as 

 with the immediate and direct suggestions of the mind, uhether 

 instructed or uninstructed, to regard the wing-rays of insects 

 wholly and entirely as organs of support, in some cases actively 

 employed in, always more or less connected with, the function of 

 locomotion, and their vascular appareil as simply subservient to 

 the maintenance of their healthful vitality and efficiency. 



There is something in a narae^ whatever the poet may teach to 

 the contrary, and if we discard such names as branchiae, nerves 

 and veins, because untruthful, still the name o{ plerygostea remains 

 and implies the truth. I think, however, that the simple word 

 ray, Latinized by radius, will be found sufficiently descriptive, and 

 fortunately possesses another clain), that of priority. 



