II. The circulation of the Arachnida is next to be considered; and the term applied to these becomes strictly proper. Two great tribes, in our view of the subject, constitute this Class,—the spiders (Araneidea) and scorpions (Scorpionidea): I shall give you some account of the circulating vessels of each.—In spiders, the heart in general is a long dorsal vessel as in insects, but supposed to be confined to the abdomen, growing slenderer towards each extremity, particularly the anal. In some also, as in Aranea domestica, like that of insects, it has lateral muscular appendages; but in others, as in Clubiona atrox, it is without them[414]. It exhibits a pair of vessels that appear to connect with the gills, by which the oxygenation of the blood takes place, and a number of others that ramify minutely and are lost in the analogue of the epiploon, supposed to be their liver[415]. Whether these last are to be regarded merely as veins, has not been ascertained; they seem rather to convey the blood outwards, than to return it back to the heart: but this question must be left for future investigation. I may observe, however, that though the heart of the spider has been traced only in the abdomen, it may probably extend into the trunk.
The heart of the scorpion has been examined both by Treviranus and Marcel de Serres; but I shall principally confine myself to the description of the latter, as the most clear and intelligible. The heart, then, of these animals is elongated, almost cylindrical, but attenuated at each end; it is extended from the head to the extremity of the tail, and appears to have four pairs of lateral muscles. On each side are four pairs of principal vessels, which go to the pulmonary pouches, and there ramify. These may be assimilated to veins. Besides these, there are four other vessels that cross them, forming with them an acute angle, and which, with four branches of smaller size, receive the blood from the pulmonary pouches, and distribute it to the different parts of the body,—these are the arteries. Before it enters the tail, the heart throws out two vascular branches which do not go to the gills, but distributing the blood to different parts, ought to be considered as arteries[416]. Treviranus mentions bunches of reticulated vessels, concerning the use and origin of which he seems uncertain[417]; but as they approach the gills they are probably the branching extremities of what M. de Serres considers as the veins.
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[LETTER XL.]
INTERNAL ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF INSECTS, CONTINUED.
DIGESTION.
"The immense Class of insects," says the immortal Cuvier, "in the structure of its alimentary canal exhibits as many variations as those of all the vertebrate animals together: there are not only the differences that strike us in going from family to family and from species to species; but one and the same individual has often a canal quite different, according as we examine it in its larva or imago state; and all these variations have relations very exact, often easily estimable, with the temporary or constant mode of life of the animals in which it is observable. Thus the voracious larvæ of the Scarabæi and butterflies have intestines ten times as large as the winged and sober insects—if I may use such an expression—to which they give birth[418]."
In the natural families of these creatures, the same analogy takes place with respect to this part that is observable in the rest of the Animal Kingdom; the length and complication of the intestines are here, as in the other Classes, often an index of a less substantial kind of nutriment; while their shortness and slenderness indicate that the insect lives by prey[419].