Essays on the Microscope: Containing a Practical Description of the Most Improved Microscopes, a General History of Insects, etc., etc.Adams, George
Science
Essays on the Microscope: Containing a Practical Description of the Most Improved Microscopes, a General History of Insects, etc., etc.
Adams, George
Insects -- Early works to 1800; Microscopy -- Early works to 1800
An exact account of all the changes of the interior parts is to be found
in Swammerdam’s Book of Nature. These changes are best examined by
taking the pupa out of the skin, or outside case, when it begins to
harden; for as it has not then quite attained the pupa form, and the
members are somewhat different from what they will be when in that
state, it is more easy to observe their respective situation, than when
the pupa is some days older, and has lost the greatest part of the
superfluous humours. The pupa is inclosed in a double garment; the
interior one is a thin membrane, which invests it very closely; the
other, or exterior one, is formed of the outermost hard skin of the
larva, within which it performs its changes in an invisible manner: it
is this skin which gives it the appearance of the larva while in the
pupa state.
When the time approaches that the hidden insect, now in the pupa form
within its old covering, is to attain the imago, fly, or perfect state,
which generally happens in about eleven days after the preceding change,
the superfluous humours are evaporated by insensible perspiration. The
little pupa is contracted into the fifth ring of the skin, and the four
last rings of the abdomen are filled with air, through the aperture in
the respiratory orifice of the tail. This may be seen by exposing the
pupa for a short space to the rays of the sun, and then putting its tail
in water, when you will find it breathe stronger than it did before,
and, by expressing an air bubble out of its tail, and then sucking it in
again, will manifestly perform the action of inspiration and expiration.
The anterior part of the pupa is drawn back from the skin, and having
partly deserted it, with the beak, head, and first ring of the breast,
the little creature lies still, until its exhaling members have acquired
strength to burst the two membranes which surround it.
If the exterior case be opened near this period, a wonderful variety of
colour may be perceived through the thin skin which invests the pupa.
The colours of many of the different parts are now changed; some parts
from aqueous become membranaceous, some fleshy, and others crustaceous.
The whole body becomes insensibly shaggy, the feet and claws begin to
move: the variations may be accurately observed by opening a pupa every
day until the time of change. For this purpose they should be laid on
white paper in an earthen dish; they should also be made somewhat moist,
and be kept under a glass: the paper serves the pupa to fix its claw to,
when they come forth in the form of a fly. A little water should be
poured into the dish, to keep the pupa from drying and suffocation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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