[Illustration: From Miall and Denny (after Newton), _The Cockroach_, Lovell Reeve & Co.
FIG. 7.--Brain of Cockroach from side. oe, Gullet; op, optic nerve; sb, sub-oesophageal ganglion; mn, mx, mx', nerves to jaws; t, tentorium.]
_Nervous System._--The nervous system in the Hexapoda is built up on the typical arthropodan plan of a double ventral nerve-cord with a pair of ganglia in each segment, the cords passing on either side of the gullet and connecting with an anterior nerve-centre or brain (fig. 7) in the head. The brain innervates the eyes and feelers, and must be regarded as a "syncerebrum" representing the ganglia of the three foremost limb-bearing somites united with the primitive cephalic lobes. Behind the gullet lies the sub-oesophageal nerve-centre (fig. 7, sb), composed of the ganglia of the four hinder head-somites and sending nerves to the jaws. A pair of ganglia in each thoracic segment is usual (fig. 8), and as many as eight distinct pairs of abdominal ganglia may often be distinguished, the hindmost of which represents the fused ganglia of the last four segments. But in many highly organized insects a remarkable concentration of the trunk-ganglia takes place, all the nerve-centres of the thorax and abdomen in the chafers and in the Hemiptera, for instance, being represented by a single mass situated in the thorax. The legs, wings and other organs of the trunk receive their nerves from the thoracic and abdominal ganglia, and the fusion of several pairs of these ganglia may be regarded as corresponding to a centralization of individuality. A special "sympathetic" system arises by paired nerves from the oesophageal connectives; these nerves unite, and send back a median recurrent nerve associated with ganglia on the gullet and crop, whence proceed cords to various parts of the digestive system.
In connexion with the central nervous system there are usually numerous organs of special sense. Most insects possess a pair of compound eyes, and many have, in addition, three simple eyes or ocelli on the vertex. The nature of these organs is described in the article ARTHROPODA. The surface of a compound eye is seen to be covered with a large number of hexagonal corneal facets, each of which overlies an ommatidium or series of cell elements (fig. 9, A, B). There are over 25,000 ommatidia in the eye of a hawk moth.