A Text-book of Entomology: Including the Anatomy, Physiology, Embryology and Metamorphoses of Insects for Use in Agricultural and Technical Schools and Colleges as Well as by the Working EntomologistPackard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)
Science
A Text-book of Entomology: Including the Anatomy, Physiology, Embryology and Metamorphoses of Insects for Use in Agricultural and Technical Schools and Colleges as Well as by the Working Entomologist
Packard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)
Insects
The integument of many insects contains fine canals passing through the
chitinous layers and opening externally in minute pores. Certain of the
pore-canals communicate with hollow setæ which sit directly over the
pores; other pores form the external openings of dermal glands, but in
many cases they are empty or only filled with air, and do not have any
hairs connected with them. Each of these pores communicates with a
hair-forming hypodermal cell, called by Graber a _trichogen_.
=Setæ= (“hairs” and bristles).—The setæ of insects are, as in worms,
processes of the cuticle originating from certain of the hypodermal
cells. They arise either from a ring-like pit, or from a minute
tubercle, and are usually situated at the outlet of a pore-canal, which
connects with an underlying cell of the hypodermis (Fig. 212). They are,
then, bristle or hair-like processes arising from the hypodermis. Where
the hairs or setæ are rubbed off, their site is indicated by a minute
ring like a follicle in the chitinous integument. The cuticular hair,
says Leydig, is in its first condition the secretion of the cellular
element of the skin, and a thread-like continuation of the cell-body may
rise up through the pore-canal into the centre of the hair, remaining
there permanently.
While the setæ are usually simple, they are often branched, plumose, or
spinulose, as in larval Hemerobiidæ, Anthrenus, and Dermestes, the larvæ
of certain coccinellid beetles, notably Epilachna, and of Cassida, the
larvæ of arctians, etc., and in bees (Anthophila, Megachile, Osmia,
Colletes, Apis, etc.).
The use of these spinulose, plumose, and twisted hairs in the bees is
clearly shown by J. B. Smith, who states that as these insects walk over
flowers, the pollen grains adhere to the vestiture, “and this also
accounts for the fact, probably noticed by every observant fruit-grower,
that bees frequently bury themselves completely in the blossoms, or roll
over every part of them. Such insects are after pollen, not honey, and
by so rolling about, the pollen grains are brought into contact with and
adhere to the surface of the insect.” The syrphid flies also pollenize
flowers, the pollenizing of chrysanthemums being effected, as Smith
states, by _Eristalis tenax_, and he adds that the body vestiture of the
syrphids “is often composed of spurred and branched hairs.” (For
reference to gathering hairs, see p. 45.)
[Illustration:
FIG. 213.—Cuticular spinules of larva of Adoneta: _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_,
different forms; _e_, _e′_, caltrops.
]
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