Mufe upon his (kill difplayed ;
(Infinite (kill) in all that he has made !
T o trace in nature’s mod minute defign,
The fignature and (lamp of pow’r divine;
Contrivance intricate, exprefs’d with, eafe,
Where unaffifted fight no beauty fees ;
The fhapely limb, and lubricated joint,
Within the fmall dimenfions o f a point;
Mufcle and nerve miraculoufly fpun,
His mighty work, who fpeaks ihd k is done,
T h ’ invifible in things fcarce feen reveal’d,
To whom an atom is an ample field.
T o wonder at a thoufand infeft forms,
Thefe hatch’d, and thofe refufckated worms,
New life ordain’d, and brighter fcenes to (hare, - '
Once prone on earth, now buoyant upon air.” *
The name o f infect has been appropriated to thefe (mail animals
on account o f the feftions or divifions in the bodies o f the
greater number o f them, from whence the parts feem to be
joined together by a kind o f neck. It is perhaps impoffible to
find any general term that fhall embrace the whole genera o f infers,
as many circumftances mull be defcribed before we can
attain an exabt notion o f thefe animals and their conftitution.
Infefts are by mod writers confidered as divided into four
principal parts; the caput or head, the thorax or trunk, the
abdomen or belly, and artus or limbs: a perfect knowledge o f
thefe
Cowper’s Poems, vol. I. p. 26i.
thefe parts, and their feveral fubdivifioias, is requifite for thofe
who are defirous of forming accurate ideas o f thefe little animals,
tor who wilh to arrange them in their proper claffes.
T he head is affixed to the thorax by a fpecies o f articulation
or joint • it is the principal feat o f the fenfes, and contains the
rudiments o f the brain; * it is furniffied with a mouth, eyes, antennae,
a forehead, a throat, and ftemmata. In the greater part
•of infefts the head is -diftindtly divided from the thorax, but in
•others it coalefces with it. The head o f fome infe&s is very
large in proportion to their bodies; the proportion between thé
head of the fame infeÉl is not always the fame; in the caterpillars
with homy heads it is generally fmall before they moult or
change their (Ivin, but much larger after each moulting. The
■ hardneft o f the exterior part o f the head prevents it’s growth
•before the-change, it is confequently, relative to the body, very
fmall; but When -the infect is -difpdfing itfelf for the change, the
-internal fitbftance o f the head retires inwards-to the'firft ring of
the neck, where it has room to expand itfelf; fo that when the
animal quits the (kin, we are furprifed with a head twice the former
fize.: and as the infeö meitfoer eats .nor grows while the head
-is forming, there is this further icircumftanae to be remarked,
that the body and the head have each their particular time o f
growth. While the head expands and grows, the body does not
•grow;at a ll; when the -body increafes, the dread remains o f the
famedize, without any change. The heads o f all kinds o f infetts
form very pdeafing as well as melt jdiverlified objedts for the
opake microfcope.
X 2 T he
* .Fabricius Phiiofophia .Entomologica, p. ,tS.