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
FIG. 240.—Nervous system of _Melanoplus spretus_: _sp_,
supraœsophageal ganglion, sending off the large optic nerve (_op_)
to the eyes, and an ocellar nerve to each ocellus (the dotted line
_oc_ stops short of the left ocellus); _if_, infraœsophageal
ganglion; 1, 2, 3, thoracic ganglia; 1–5, five abdominal ganglia
(the fifth the largest, and sending branches to the ovipositor,
etc.) The sympathetic nerve and ganglia are represented by the two
main nerves which arise from the medio-cephalic (_as_) resting on
and above the œsophagus, and two ganglia (_ps_) on the under side of
the crop. From each of these ganglia, two nerves are sent under the
crop, and a larger nerve on each side to as far as the stomachal
cæca, ending the figure at the dotted line 2, near the second
thoracic ganglion. _u_, a round, shining body, connected by a nerve
with the medio-cephalic ganglion, its nature unknown.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 241.—Section through the head of Machilis, showing the brain
(_br_), and subœsophageal ganglion (_soe. g_); _cl_, clypeus; _lbr_,
labrum; _oc_, ocellus.
]
While the supraœsophageal ganglion, or “brain,” of the insect is much
more complex than any other ganglion, consisting more exclusively both
of sensory as well as motor ganglia and their nerves, it should be borne
in mind that the subœsophageal ganglion also receives nerves of special
sense, situated on the palpi and on the tongue, as in the bee and other
insects; hence this ganglion is probably complex, consisting of sensory
and motor cells. The third thoracic ganglion is also, without doubt, a
complex one, as in the locusts the auditory nerves pass into it from the
ears, which are situated at the base of the abdomen, while in the green
grasshoppers, such as the katydids and their allies, whose ears are
situated in their fore legs, the first thoracic ganglion is a complex
one. In the cockroach and in Leptis (Chrysopila), a common fly, the
caudal appendages bear what are probably olfactory organs, and as these
parts are undoubtedly supplied from the last abdominal ganglion, this is
probably composed of sensory and motor ganglia; so that we have in the
ganglionated cord of insects a series of brains, as it were, running
from head to tail, and thus in a still stronger sense than in
vertebrates the entire nervous system, and not the brain alone, is the
organ of the mind of insects.
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