Insect Transformations..

Front Cover
Charles Knight, ... Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, ... Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh; T. Atkinson, Glasgow; Wakeman, Dublin; Willmer, Liverpool; and Baines & Company, Leeds., 1830 - Insects - 420 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 244 - A fire devoureth before them ; and behind them a flame burneth : the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness ; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
Page 244 - They shall run like mighty men ; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks, neither shall one thrust another.
Page 177 - Socrates appears to have measured the leap of a flea, and found it extended to two hundred and fifty times its own length ; a most astonishing leap ! It was as if a man of ordinary stature should be able at once to vault through the air to the distance of a quarter of a mile ! — Techonolog.
Page 331 - ... that in birds the lungs have several openings, communicating with corresponding air-bags or cells, which fill the whole cavity of the body, from the neck downwards, and into which the air passes and repasses in the progress of breathing. This is not all; the very bones are hollow, from which air-pipes are conveyed to the most solid parts of the body, even into the quills and feathers : this air being rarefied by the heat of the body, adds to their levity.
Page 245 - ... in doing which they kept their ranks like men of war, climbing over, as they advanced, every tree or wall that was in their way; nay, they entered into our very houses and bedchambers, like so many thieves.
Page 161 - ... upwards again and fold over the face as high as the nose, concealing not only the chin and the first-mentioned elongation, but the mouth and part of the cheeks' : conceive, moreover, that to the end of this last-mentioned plate are fixed two other convex ones, so broad as to cover the whole nose and temples ', — that these can open at pleasure, transversely like a pair of jaws, so as to expose the nose and mouth, and that their inner edges where they meet are cut into numerous sharp teeth...
Page 245 - ... by casting their outward skin. To prepare themselves for this change, they clung by their hinder feet to some bush, twig, or corner of a stone ; and immediately, by using an undulating motion, their heads would first break out, and then the rest of their bodies. The whole transformation was performed in seven or eight minutes...
Page 178 - London, exhibited to the public a little ivory chaise, with four wheels, and all its proper apparatus, and a man sitting on the box, all of which were drawn by a single flea. He made a small landau, which opened and shut by springs, with six horses harnessed to it ; a coachman sitting on the box, and a dog between his legs ; four persons in the carriage, two footmen behind it, and a postillion riding on one of the forehorses, which was easily drawn along by a flea.
Page 162 - Yet this procedure is that adopted by the larva of the dragonfly, provided with this strange organ. While it is at rest, it applies close to and covers the face. When the insects would make use of it, they unfold it like an arm, catch the prey at which they aim by means of the...
Page 61 - The eggs, it may be remarked, are thrust sufficiently deep to prevent their being thrown off when the caterpillar casts its skin ; and, being in due time hatched, the grubs feed in concert on the living body of the caterpillar. The most wonderful circumstance, indeed, of the whole phenomenon, is the instinct with which the grubs are evidently guided to avoid devouring any vital part, so that they may not kill the caterpillar, as in that case it would be useless to them for food. When full grown,...

Bibliographic information