282 ZOOLOGY 



which chitinous grinding plates may occur (crayfish, cockroach)- 

 The "salivary" glands when present open into the esophagus 

 or mouth cavity. Into the mesenteron important digestive 

 glands may open, as the pyloric caeca (many insects), or liver 

 (crajrfish and spiders). The Malpighian tubules (see dissec- 

 tion of the grasshopper) associated with the hind gut are 

 believed to be excretory rather than digestive in function. 

 The digestive system as a whole is strikingly correlated with 

 the character of food used, which is exceedingly diversified 

 in this phylum. This results in the fact that the details of 

 structure are scarcely the same in any two species. Indeed the 

 digestive process and structures are very different in the larval 

 and adult stages of the same individual, — as, in the caterpillar 

 that feeds on green leaves and the adult that lives on nectar or 

 fruit juices. This can be appreciated only by extended ob- 

 servation and comparison. The student is urged to com- 

 pare such figures of these organs as he may be able to find in 

 the reference texts at his command. 



321. Respiration. — In some instances the Arthropoda ob- 

 tain their oxygen directly from the air, in others from the 

 water. In the latter the exchange is effected through the body 

 wall, or by gills. These are essentially thin outgrowths of 

 the body wall, with the cuticula much reduced, into which the 

 blood passes (e.g., the majority of Crustacea). In the former 

 it takes place wholly by means of tubular air-passages or trachem 

 (insects), or these may be supplemented by thinned folds of the 

 body wall — book-lungs (spiders). By these devices the oxygen 

 of the air or water and the blood are brought into intimate rela- 

 tions. In the water-breathing forms the gills are either the 

 modified appendages {Limulus, Asellus), or specialized out- 

 growths from them or from the general body wall (crayfish; 

 Fig. 126, g). The gills vary widely in number and position, 

 but are found especially in connection with the thoracic and 

 abdominal appendages. The air-breathing forms possess a sys- 

 tem of interbranching tubes which may open to the exterior by 

 a pair of spiracles {stigmata) or pores in each somite. These 

 tubes unite, branch and penetrate to every portion of the body. 

 The air is carried to the blood rather than the blood to the air 



