INTERNAL ANATOMY OF INSECTS, 19] 
that after the resurrection, our bodies by a change in 
the structure and composition of their muscular fibre 
—for we know that their locomotive powers and organs, 
as far as the muscle is concerned, will then be of a very 
different nature*—may become fitted for motions and a 
potent agency of which we have now no conception. 
This wonderful strength of insects is doubtless the re- 
sult of something peculiar in the structure and arrange- 
ment of their muscles, and principally their extraordi- 
nary power of contraction, excited by the extent of their 
respiration: for animals that respire but little, as the 
foetus in the womb and the pullet in the egg, have very 
little contractile muscular power. To get some idea 
from facts of this extraordinary contractile power in in- 
sects,—extract the sting of a bee or a wasp, with its mus- 
cles, which appear to be attached to powerful cartilagi- 
nous plates*, and you will find it continue for a long 
time to dart forth its spicula, almost as powerfully as 
when moved by the will of the animal. A still more ex- 
traordinary instance of irritability is exhibited by the 
antlia, or instrument of suction of the butterfly. If this 
organ, which the insect can roll up spirally like a watch- 
spring or extend in a straight direction, be cut off as 
soon as the animal is disclosed from the chrysalis, it will 
continue to roll up and unroll itself as if still attached 
to its head: and if after having apparently ceased to 
move for three or four hours it be merely touched, it 
will again begin to move and resume the same action. 
This surprising irritability and contractility of muscle 
2 1 Cor, xv. 50—. » N. Dict. d@ Hist. Nat. ubi supr. 
“ Swamm. Bibl. Nat. t. xviii. f. 2. 1,m,n,o. Reaum. v. ¢. xxix. 
fi (om, nyo, og. 
