Micro-Lepidoptera. 3 



of its tenement. So far, externally, we may pause to admire 

 the adaptation of its body for its present phase of life ; but, if 

 taking advantage of the long and patient labours of Lyonnet, 

 Dufour, Swammerdam, and other distinguished naturalists, we 

 pass from the outward form to the internal mechanism of this 

 minute creature, taking its various functions of respiration, cir- 

 culation, nutrition, secretion, with sensation, and muscular 

 action, one by one, into quiet, thoughtful consideration, far 

 greater will be our appreciation and admiration of the little 

 Coleophora before us. 



Its sensation depends upon its nervous system, and that 

 consists of a chief ganglion, or little brain, followed by twelve 

 other little ganglia united by nervous cords, and giving out 

 branches in pairs more numerous even than those of our own 

 human body, for Lyonnet counted ninety of these branches in 

 a caterpillar, and we have but seventy- eight. 



Its respiration who can conceive ? unless the eye has seen, 

 under high microscopic power, the wonderful complexity and 

 delicate tracery of the tracheal vessels which envelope and 

 permeate the whole of the internal organs attached to the 

 external spiracle, aerating and life-giving. 



The circulation is provided for by the throbbing, no, not 

 throbbing, but pulsating heart, which beats so strongly and 

 evenly, sending the white, cold blood in steady current to and 

 fro from chamber to chamber of the dorsal vessel, in each of 

 which it receives exhilarating oxygen from the network of 

 trachea surrounding it. The life of a larva is calm and unim- 

 passioned, the instinct of self-preservation more developed 

 than the instinct of reproduction ; the calm pulsation of the 

 silkworm is very different from the fluttering pulses of the 

 silkworm moth. 



Its nutrition. We may not give time to that, with all its 

 elaborate arrangement of pharynx, oesophagus, crop, gizzard, 

 biliary vessels, etc., etc., etc. Let us rather consider its 

 muscular action, for it is very remarkable in our little tent- 

 maker. 



If any one has seen the preparation of the Cossus by Mr. 

 Robertson, in the Oxford Museum, an illustration of Lyonnet' s 

 researches, proving 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 — remembering that we have no 

 reason whatever for denying the same number of muscular 

 bands to the smallest larva, and that the Coleophora in par- 

 ticular 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, adductors, supinators, and pro- 



