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IX. On the Reproduction of lost parts in Myriapoda and Insecta. 
By George Newport, Esq., F.R.C.S., President of the Entomological Society 
of London, and Corresponding Member of the Philomathic Society of Paris. 
Communicated by P. M. Roget, M.D., Sec. R.S. 
Received June 20, — Read June 20, 1844. 
I HE reproduction of parts of the body that have been accidentally lost or removed, 
is an occurrence of so much interest, in relation to the laws of nutrition and develop- 
ment, that I am induced to trespass on the attention of the Royal Society with an 
account of some experiments on this subject in the Myriapoda and Insecta. It has 
long - been known to every naturalist that the Crustacea and Arachnida are capable 
of reproducing their limbs ; and it has also been stated that a similar reproduction 
of parts takes place in some of those insects which are active throughout their whole 
life, and do not change their form, but merely cast their tegument and increase 
in size. But it has been questioned whether any reproduction of lost parts can take 
place in those insects which undergo a complete metamorphosis, and change their 
form, their food and mode of life in passing from the young to the adult state. No 
investigations have hitherto been undertaken to decide the question in insects that 
undergo these changes, nor have any experiments been made to show that a repro- 
duction of lost parts is common also to the whole of the Class Myriapoda. 
At a meeting of the Entomological Society in November 1839*, I exhibited a spe- 
cimen of Scolopendra sub-spinipes, which had the eleventh leg, on the left side of the 
body, so much smaller than the corresponding one on the right, although otherwise 
perfect in regard to the number of its articulations, that I regarded it as a marked 
instance of reproduction of the limbs in that class. As no experiments had then been 
made to prove the fact, this opinion was disputed, and the instance pointed out was 
considered as merely one of an arrest of development -f. Since then it has been 
shown;}:, as first noticed by Muller §, that a reproduction of the legs most certainly 
takes place in the Phasmidce ; but it is still doubted whether it can occur in the Lepi- 
doptera, and other tribes that undergo a complete change. 
In the summer of 1841, and also in 1842, I made a series of experiments on this 
subject, on the Myriapoda ; and during the present summer have completed a similar 
* Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, vol. iii. part 1. p. 33. 
f Idem. Journal of Proceedings, Nov. 2, 1840, p. 14. 
J Id. January 1, 1844. President’s Address, 1844, p. 5. 
§ Elements of Physiology, Dr. Baly’s translation, Edit. 1. 1837, p. 405. 
