174 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



close to the inner skin, — those on the fore part of the 

 body laid towards the head, and from the fourth ring 

 backwards in a contrary direction. 



Swammerdam, Reaumur, and other naturalists, 

 repeatedly tried the experiment of cutting; off the 

 hair from caterpillars about to moult, without in the 

 least affecting- the hairs on the new skin ; but when a 

 foot or any other member is accidentally mutilated, it 

 is also wanting in the moulted caterpillar, facts 

 which strongly corroborate the details we have given 

 above. 



It is a still more singular circumstance, ascer- 

 tained by Swammerdam, De Geer, Lyonnet, and 

 Bonnet, that caterpillars and grubs not only cast 

 their external skins, but also that which lines their 

 breathing-tubes and intestines. " Some days,'' sajs 

 Bonnet, " before the change, the caterpillar voids 

 along with its excrements the membrane which in- 

 vests the interior of its stomach and intestines. I 

 have also remarked, that during the moult, packets of 

 the tracheal vessels may be seen attached to the cast 

 skin, and thrown off along with it." De Geer has 

 distinctly seen white fibres proceeding from the inte- 

 rior spiracles of a butterfly remain attached to the 

 pupa-case. He conjectures that these fibres consist 

 of the delicate membrane which lines the wind-pipes; 

 and that they are moulted like the lining of the sto- 

 mach of a lobster, or of a caterpillar. Lyonnet, in 

 some measure, confirms this conjecture *. 



In his admirable description of the rhinoceros- 

 beetle {Oryctes iiasiconiis), Swammerdam says of 

 the grub: "Nothing in all nature is, in my opinion, 

 a more wonderful sight, than the change of skin in 

 these and other the like grubs. This matter, there- 

 fore, deserves the greatest consideration, and is wor- 

 thy to be called a specimen of Nature's miracles. For 

 * Bonnet, CEuvres, vol. viii. pp. 303-311. 



