Evenings at the microscope; or, Researches among the minuter organs and forms of animal life / by Philip Henry Gosse.

  • Philip Henry Gosse
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Evenings at the microscope; or, Researches among the minuter organs and forms of animal life / by Philip Henry Gosse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    175/464 (page 155)
    And before I apply pressure to the glass-plate, devote a moment’s attention to the head as a whole. First, the head itself is a hemisphere, almost wholly occupied with the two compound eyes, which present the beautiful ap- pearance of a globe of black velvet, studded with gold buttons arranged in lines crossing each other at right angles. The summit of the head, where the two com- pound eyes unite, bears a sort of rounded pedestal, the area of which forms the sole part of the head not covered by the organs of vision. On this are placed, side by side, the two antennae, springing from rounded bulbous bases ; they consist of twelve (exclusive of the basal bulb) cylindrical joints, which are beset on all sides with short arched hairs, but have besides a whorl of radiating long hairs surrounding the bottom of each joint. The effect of this is exceedingly light and elegant. Between these projects a long cylinder, which repre- sents the lower lip (labium) ; it slightly swells towards the tip, where it forms a round, nut-like knob, covered with exceedingly minute papillae, and no doubt consti- tuting a highly sensitive organ of touch. For the greatest part of its length it is covered with lined scales, and with short arched hairs like the antennae, while each side of its base is guarded by a labial palpi of three joints. On applying a graduated pressure, slowly increased to actual contact of the plates (or as near an approxima- tion to it as we can effect), we see first that the nut-like tip of the labium expands into two concave leaves, like the bracts of a bud, and displays two pairs of more delicate leaves within them. Then, from a groove along the upper side of the labium spring out several filaments, of great elasticity, and of the most delicate tenuity. One pair of these represent the mandibles ; they consist each of a very narrow blade, with a stronger back like