Home › Curiosities Respecting Insects › Curiosities Respecting Insects (Seven hundred times smaller)

Curiosities Respecting Insects (Seven hundred times smaller)

seven hundred times smaller than a hair, and is conta.ned in another case within the first, and can be drawn in or thrust out at pleasure. The breast is very beautifully marked in the middle; the skin is transparent, and full of little pits; and from the under part of it proceed six legs, each having five joints, and their skin all the way resembling shagreen, except at the ends, where it is smoother. Each leg is terminated by two claws, which are hooked, and are of an unequal length and size. These it uses as we would a thumb and middle finger; and there are hairs between these claws, as well as all over the legs. On the back part of the tail there may be discovered some ring-like divisions, and a sort of marks which look like the strokes of a rod on the human skin; the belly looks like shagreen, and towards the lower end it is very clear, and full of pits: at the extremity of the tail there are two semicircular parts, all covered over with hairs. When the louse moves its legs, the motion of the muscles, which all unite in an oblong dark spot in the middle of the breast, may be distinguished perfectly; and so may the motion of the muscles of the head, when it moves its horns. We may likewise see the various ramifications of the veins and arteries, which are white, with the pulse regularly beating in the arteries. The peristaltic motion of the intestines may be distinctly seen, from the stomach down to the anus. If one of these creatures, when hungry, be placed on the back of the hand, it will thrust its sucker into the skin, and the blood which it sucks may be seen passing in a fine stream to the fore part of the head; where, falling into a roundish cavity, it passes again in a fine stream to another circular receptacle in the middle of the head; from thence it runs through a small vessel to the breast, and then to a gut which reaches to the hinder part of the body, where, in a curve, it turns again a little upward in the breast and gut; the blood is moved without intermission with great force, especially in the former, where it occasions a surprising contraction. In the upper part of the crooked ascending gut above-men tioned, the propelled blood stands still, and seems to undergo a separation, some of it becoming clear and waterish, while other black particles are pushed forward to the anus. If a louse is placed on its back, two bloody darkish spots appear; the larger in the middle of the body, the smaller towards the tail; the motions of which are followed by the pulsation of the dark bloody spot, in or over which the white bladder seems to lie. This motion of the systole and diastole is best seen when the creature begins to grow weak; and on pricking the white bladder, which seems to be the heart, it instantly dies. The lower dark spot is supposed to be the excrement.