The anatomy, physiology, morphology and development of the blow-fly (Calliphora erythrocephala) A study in the comparative anatomy and morphology of insects; with plates and illustrations executed directly from the drawings of the author

CeI am content to await the verdict of posterity on my conclusions.Some of my views will, of course, be replaced by others, but I have the strongest belief that most of them will withstand adverse criticism, and will ultimately be accepted.If this is so, many of the old statements will, disappear from future text-books as completely as the Vertebrate morphology of fifty years ago has vanished from those of to-day.IVT RODUCTION.ALTHOUGH the study of the anatomy of insects was formerly cultivated with great assiduity by such men as Swammerdam, Malpighi, Lyonet, Straus Durckheim, and more recently by Leydig, it is a science which has never found a home in England; moreover, the improvements in the compound microscope, which have made a new epoch in biological studies, have rather checked than advanced the study of insect anatomy, by diverting investigation into what appeared for a time more fertile fields of research.In the last twenty years, however, many remarkable monographs have appeared in France, Germany, and Russia, and our knowledge has been greatly advanced; yet, extraordinary as it may appear, there is no really competent treatise on insect anatomy, in English, of more recent date than Newport's article ' Insecta' in Todd's Cyclopedia (1836).If we wish to make ourselves acquainted with the researches of late years, it is necessary to consult many memoirs in several languages-Graber's work, ' Die Insecten,' to a certain extent, is available to those conversant with German, and Miall and Denny have given us an excellent memoir on the cockroach, which is, however, insufficient as an vi INTRODUCTION.introduction to the study of so highly modified a type as the Blow-fly.I have therefore followed the example of Straus Durckheim, and given a résumé of the principles of anatomy, morphology, and histology, applied to insects generally in a series of introductory chapters and sections, in order that the most recent knowledge collected by many observers may be presented to my readers, and enable them to understand more completely the characteristic peculiarities of the very remarkable type I propose to describe, and its relations to other forms of insect life.The term ' Blow-fly' is applied indiscriminately, not only to several species of a single genus, but to those of other genera and sub-genera.My own researches, which have extended over nearly a quarter of a century, have been chiefly made upon the most abundant form in this country, Calliphora erythrocephala, and when I speak of the Blow-fly in the following pages, unless otherwise stated, my observations refer to this species only.During the past two years most of my researches have been made in my new laboratory at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School.I am indebted to my Demonstrator, Mr. G. C. Karop, for valuable help, and more especially