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 facet or cornea.=—This is biconvex, clear, transparent, usually
hexagonal in outline, and refracts the light. The corneal lenses are
cast in moulting.
The corneal lenses are circular in most cases where they are very
convex, as in Lathridius and Batocera. The hexagonal ones are very
irregular. When they are very convex the eye has a granular
appearance, but when not greater than the convexity of the eye
itself, the eye appears perfectly smooth (Bolbocerus, etc.). The
facets in the lower part of the eye of Dineutes are a trifle larger
than in the upper part (about nine to ten). In many insects the
reverse is the case, the upper facets being larger than the lower, a
notable instance being Anax. The intervening lines between the
facets are often beset with hairs, sometimes very long and dense, as
in the drone bee and Trichophthalmus; and the modifications of the
hairs into scales which takes place on the body occurs on the eyes
also, the scales on the eyes of some beetles of the family Colydiidæ
being very large, arranged in lines over the eyes like tombstones
(Trachypholis).[45]
[Illustration:
FIG. 261.—Section through the eye of a fly (_Musca vomitoria_): _c_,
cornea, or facet; _pc_, pseudocone; _r_, retinula; _Rh_, rhabdom;
_pg^1_, _pg^2_, _pg^3_, pigment cells; _b.m_, basilar membrane; _T_,
_Tt_{1}_, _Tt_{2}_, trachea; _tv_, tracheal vesicle; _t.a_, terminal
anastomosis; _op_, opticon; _c.op_, epiopticon; _p.op_, periopticon;
_n.c_, nuclei; _n.c.s_, nerve-cell sheath; _N.f_, decussating
nerve-fibres.—After Hickson, from Lubbock.
]
=The crystalline lens or cone.=—Behind or within the facets is a layer
composed of the cones, behind which are the layers of retinulæ and
rhabdoms, and which correspond to the layer of rods and cones, but not
the retina as a whole, of vertebrate animals.
The crystalline lens is, when present, usually more or less conical, and
consists of four or more hypodermis-cells.
The cones are of various shapes and sizes in insects of different
groups, or are entirely wanting, and Grenacher has divided the eyes of
insects into _eucone_, _pseudocone_, and _acone_. As the pseudocone
seems, however, to be rather a modification of the eucone eye, the
following division may be made:—
1. _Eucone eyes_, comprising those with a well-developed cone. They
occur in Lepisma, Blatta (Fig. 262), and other Orthoptera, in
Neuroptera, in Cicadidæ, in those Coleoptera with five tarsal joints, in
the dipterous genus Corethra, and in the Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera
(Fig. 263).
[Illustration:
FIG. 262.—Ommatidium of cockroach (Periplaneta): _lf_, cornea; _kk_,
crystalline cone; _pg′_ pigment cell; _rl_, retinula; _rm_,
rhabdom.—After Grenacher, from Lubbock.
]
[Illustration:
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