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Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882

"The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, 6th Edition"


INSECTIVOROUS.--Feeding on insects.
INVERTEBRATA, or INVERTEBRATE ANIMALS.--Those animals which do not possess
a backbone or spinal column.
LACUNAE.--Spaces left among the tissues in some of the lower animals and
serving in place of vessels for the circulation of the fluids of the body.
LAMELLATED.--Furnished with lamellae or little plates.
LARVA (pl. LARVAE).--The first condition of an insect at its issuing from
the egg, when it is usually in the form of a grub, caterpillar, or maggot.
LARYNX.--The upper part of the windpipe opening into the gullet.
LAURENTIAN.--A group of greatly altered and very ancient rocks, which is
greatly developed along the course of the St. Laurence, whence the name.
It is in these that the earliest known traces of organic bodies have been
found.
LEGUMINOSAE.--An order of plants represented by the common peas and beans,
having an irregular flower in which one petal stands up like a wing, and
the stamens and pistil are enclosed in a sheath formed by two other petals.
The fruit is a pod (or legume).
LEMURIDAE.--A group of four-handed animals, distinct from the monkeys and
approaching the insectivorous quadrupeds in some of their characters and
habits. Its members have the nostrils curved or twisted, and a claw
instead of a nail upon the first finger of the hind hands.
LEPIDOPTERA.--An order of insects, characterised by the possession of a
spiral proboscis, and of four large more or less scaly wings.


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