File:Animal and vegetable physiology, considered with reference to natural theology (1836) (14784610493).jpg

Identifier: animalvegetable01roge (find matches)
Title: Animal and vegetable physiology, considered with reference to natural theology
Year: 1836 (1830s)
Authors: Roget, Peter Mark, 1779-1869
Subjects: Biology Physiology Plant physiology Natural theology
Publisher: Philadelphia, Carey, Lea & Blanchard
Contributing Library: NCSU Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: NCSU Libraries

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n their formation. The model shehas chosen for their construction is that which combines thegreatest security against injurious impressions from without,with the most extensive powers of locomotion; and whichalso admits of the fullest exercise of all those faculties ofactive enjoyment which are characteristic of animal life. Shehas provided for the first of these objects by enclosing thesofter organs in dense and horny coverings, which performthe office of an external skeleton, sustaining and protectingthe viscera, and furnishing extensive surfaces of attachmentto the muscles, from the action of which all the varied move-ments of the system are derived. The muscular system of perfect insects is exceedinglycomplex. Lyonet has described and delineated an immensenumber of muscular bands in the caterpillar of the Cossus,and the plates he has given have been copied in a varietyof books in illustration of this part of the structure of in-sects. The recent work of Straus Durckheim affords an
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equally striking example of admirable arrangement in themuscles of the Melolontha vulgaris, or cockchaffer, the ana- WINGED INSECTS. 215 tomy of which has l)ccn minutely invcstigntcd l)y that dis-tinguished entomologist. These muscles are represented inFig. 144, which has heen carefully reduced from his beauti-fully executed plates. The largest mass of muscular fibresis that marked a, which depress the wings, and are of enor-mous size and strength. On examining the different structures which compose thesolid frame-work of insects, we find them conforming in everyinstance to the general type of annulose animals, inasmuchas they consist of thickened portions of integument, encir-cling the body; but variously united and consolidated, forthe manifest purpose of obtaining greater mechanical strengthand elasticity than if they had remained detached pieces,joined only by membranous connexions. A long flexiblebody, such as that possessed by the Myriapoda, could noteasily have been transported

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