The part of the caterpillar which naturalists call the HEART, without being certain that it performs the functions thereof, is of a nature very different from that of larger animals. It is almost as long as the caterpillar itself, lies immediately under the skin at the top of the back, entering into the head, and terminating near the mouth. It is large and spacious towards the last rings of the body, and diminishes very much as it approaches the head, from the fourth to the twelfth division; it has on both sides, at each division, an appendage, which partly covers the muscles of the back; but, growing narrower as it approaches the lateral line, forms a number of irregular lozenge-shaped bodies. This muscular tube has been called the heart of the caterpillar; first, because it is generally filled with a kind of lymph, which has been supposed to be the blood of the caterpillar; secondly, because in all caterpillars, whose skin is in some degree transparent, continual, regular, and alternate dilatations and contractions may be perceived along the superior line, beginning at the eleventh ring, and going on from ring to ring to the fourth, whence this vessel has been considered as a file of hearts; but still this viscera seems to have very little relation to the heart of larger animals; we find no vessel opening into it, to answer to the aorta, vena cava, &c. &c. Near the eighth division are two white oblong masses, that join the tube of the heart; they have been called reniform bodies, because they are something similar to a kidney in their shape.
The CORPUS CRASSUM is, with respect to volume, the most considerable part of the whole caterpillar; it is the first and only substance that is seen on opening it, forming a kind of sheath, which envelopes and covers all the entrails, and introducing itself into the head, enters all the muscles of the body, filling the greatest part of the empty spaces in the caterpillar. It is of a milk-white colour. In its configuration it is very similar to the human brain. When the different masses of the corpus crassum which covers the entrails are removed, the largest parts are the oesophagus, the ventricle, and the large intestines.
The OESOPHAGUS descends from the bottom of the mouth to about the fourth division. The anterior part which is in the head is fleshy, narrow, and fixed by different muscles to the crustaceous parts thereof; the lower part which passes into the body is wider, and forms a kind of membranaceous bag, which is covered with very small muscles; near the stomach it is again narrower, and is as it were bridled by a strong nerve, which is fixed to it at distant intervals.
The VENTRICLE begins a little above the fourth division, where the oesophagus finishes, and terminates at the tenth division; it is about seven times longer than it is broad; the anterior part, which is the broadest, is generally folded. The folds diminish with the bulk, in proportion as it approaches the intestines. An assemblage of nerves cover the surface, it is surrounded by a number of aerial vessels, and opens into a tube, which Lyonet calls the large intestine.
There are three of these large tubes or INTESTINES, each of which differs from the other so much, both in structure and character as to require a particular name to distinguish them; though this is not the place to enumerate these characteristic differences. As most caterpillars are endued with a power or faculty of spinning, they are provided with two vessels where the substance is prepared, which, when drawn out, and extended in the air, becomes a silken thread; these two vessels are termed the silk-vessels or tubes; in the caterpillar of the cossus, they are often above three inches long, and are distinguished into three parts, the anterior, the intermediate, and posterior. It has also two other vessels, which are supposed to prepare and contain the liquor by which it dissolves the wood on which it feeds.
Thus have we endeavoured to give the reader some idea of the wonderful organization of this apparently imperfect animal. Assuredly the four-thousand[100] muscles employed in the construction of the caterpillar of the cossus cannot be considered without the deepest astonishment: their admirable co-ordination and junction with other parts equally numerous, yet all harmonizing and acting together as if they were essentially one, naturally lead the mind to consider the nature and perfection of creation, and to perceive that it is an exhibition of the highest wisdom; and that this wisdom, which in the minutest things gives evidence of such an immense attention to order and use, has, no doubt, framed the whole for some great purpose; but what that purpose is, exceeds the present limits of the human understanding to discover.
[100] Lyonet sur la Chenille de Saule, p. 584.