62 THE CLASS OF INSECTS. 



are graduall}' released, and with them the antennae, paliji, and 

 legs, and the larva removes itself entirely from the shell and 

 membranes. In this process of evolntion the yonng Meloe 

 throws otl" two distinct coverings : first, the shell with its lining 

 membrane, the analogue of the membrane in which, as I have 

 elsewhere shown,* the 3omig Mjriopod is inclosed, and re- 

 tained several days after the bursting of the ovum, and which 

 represents in the Articulata, not the allantois, but apparently 

 the amnion, of Verteln-ata ; next, the first, or fVetal decid nation 

 of the tegument, analogous probably to the first change of skin 

 in the Myriopod, after it has escaped from the amnion, and 

 also to the first change which the 3'oung Arachnidan invariably 

 undergoes a few days after it has left the egg, and before it 

 can take food. This tegument, which, i)erha])s, may be analo- 

 gous to the remix caseosa of Vertebrata, tin-own off at the 

 instant of birth, is left by the young INIeloe with the amnion 

 in the shell ; and its separation from the body, at this early 

 period, seems necessar}- to fit the insect for the active life it 

 has commenced." (Linn. Trans, xx. p. 30G, etc.) 



The larva state. The larva (Latin larva, a mask) was so 

 called because it was thought to mask the form of the perfect 

 insect. The larvae of Butterflies and Moths are called cater- 

 pillars; those of Beetles, ^r?<6s; and those of the two-winged 

 Flies (Diptera) maggots; the larvae of other groups have no 

 distinctive common names. 



As soon as it is hatched the larva feeds voraciously, as if in 

 anticipation of the coming period of rest, the pupa state, for 

 which stores of fat (the fatty bodies) are developed for the 

 suppl}" of fat globules out of which the tissues of the new 

 body of the pupa and imago are to be formed. 



Most larvae moult, or change their skin, four or five times. 

 In the inactive thin-skinned larvte, such as those of Bees, 

 A¥asps, and Gall-flies, the moults arc not ai)parcnt ; as the 

 larva increases in size it out-grows the old skin, which comes 

 off in thin shreds. But in the active larvif, such as cater- 

 pillars, grasshoppers, and grubs', from the rapid absorption of 

 vessels in the outer layer of the skin, just before the change, 



* Philosophical Transactions, Pt. 2, lS41,p. 111. 



