THE FLAX-SEED STATE. 5T5 



the plant ; but Avlien two or three are fixed in this manner 

 around the stem, they weaken and impoverish the plant, 

 and cause it to fall down, or to wither and die. They 

 usually come to their full size in five or six Aveeks, and 

 then measure about three twentieths of an inch in length. 

 Their skin now gradually hardens, becomes brownish, and 

 soon changes to a bright chestnut-color. This change usu- 

 ally happens about the first of December. 



The insect, in this form, has been commonly likened to a 

 flax-seed (Fig. 259, natural size and magnified, ^.^ ^.^ 



larva on the left). Hence "many observers 

 speak of this as the flax-seed state." Others 

 reo-ard it as the beginning of the pupa state, 

 wherein the condition of the insect is analogous 

 to the immature pupa (houle allongee) of com- 

 mon flies. Such indeed has been my own im- 

 pression concerning it ; and even so it seems to 

 have been regarded by Mr. Herrick, although he 

 was well aware of the actual form of the insect included with- 

 in this "leathery" outer skin of the larva, and of all its subse- 

 quent changes. While this change of the color and texture 

 of the skin is going on, the body of the insect, as remarked 

 by Mr. Herrick, " gradually cleaves from the dried skin, and, 

 in the course of two or three weeks, is wholly detached." 



In a letter dated February 21, 1843, he alludes more 

 explicitly to the condition of the insect, in these words : 

 " In two or three weeks after this change of color, the ani- 

 mal within becomes entirely detached from the old larva- 

 skin, and lies a motionless gruh.^'' Accordingly, wdien this 

 dried skin or flax-seed case is opened, the insect will be 

 found loose within it, and still retaining the maggot form, 

 as stated by Mr. Herrick, Mr. Worth,* and Professor 



* ]\Ir. James 'Worth, writing on this insect in 1820, remarked tliat " as soon as it 

 changes to the flax-seed color, by rolling it lightly with the flnger, the tegument 

 can be taken off; the worm, will then appear with a greenish stripe through it, 

 which is evidently the substance extracted from the plant." (American Farmer, 

 Vol. II. p. 180.) 



