Though the form of this insect is naturally disgusting, yet the eyes make a beautiful object for the microscope. They have generally eight; two on the top of the head, that look directly upwards; two in the front, a little below the foregoing, to discover what passes before it; on each side a couple more, whereof one points sideways forward, the other sideways backward; so that the spider can nearly see all around. These eyes are immoveable, and seem to be formed of a hard transparent horny substance. A portion of each sphere projects externally beyond the socket, the largest part is sunk within it. There is round each eye a circular transparent membrane. Mr. Baker placed the eye of a spider over a pin-hole made through a piece of card, and then applied it as a lens to examine objects; he found it magnified the objects greatly, but that it did not exhibit them distinctly; this he however attributed to the length of time the spider had been dead whose eye he used. The number of eyes is not the same in all species of the spider.
OF THE STEMMATA.
It might be imagined, that as every fly has two reticulated eyes, they could not have occasion for more; but so it has not appeared to that GREAT BEING who formed them, for many are furnished besides with other eyes, differing in form and construction from those that are reticulated.
These were first noticed by M. de la Hire; they are three lucid protuberances placed on the back part of the head of many insects: their surface is glossy, of an hemispheric figure, and a coal black colour. They are transparent, and disposed in a triangular form; by modern naturalists they are termed stemmata.
Reaumur made experiments on these eyes, similar to those he had made on the reticulated ones, and found that when the stemmata were covered with dark varnish, the insects flew but to a small distance, and always at random.
No insect is, I believe, found with both kind of eyes, unless in its perfect state: there are many species which are not furnished with stemmata, gnats and tipulæ are without them.
We are apt to suppose that nature has lavished all her bounty upon her larger creatures, and left her minims of existence, as Shakspeare phrases it, unfinished; with what different ideas must those be impressed, who find the apparatus for vision in these small creatures so various and so wonderful in their structure, and who must perceive so much design and order manifested in the position, construction, and number of these delicate and useful organs.
OF THE BODY OF INSECTS.
The trunk or body of the insect is situated between the head and abdomen. Naturalists divide it into three parts; the thorax, scutellum, and sternum.
The thorax is the upper part of the body, it is of various shapes and proportions; the sides and back of it are often armed with points.