METAMORPHOSES. G5 



rent terms made use of to designate them in each, as 

 shall enable you to comprehend the frequent allusions 

 which must be made to them in our future correspond- 

 ence. 



The states through which insects pass are four : the 

 ^gg; the larva/ the pupa; nnd the i)77 ago. 



The first of these need not be here adverted to. In 

 the second, or immediately after the exclusion from the 

 egg-, they are soft, witliout wings, and in shape usually 

 somewhat like worms. This Linnc called the /r/rr« 

 state, and an insect when in it a larva, adopting a Latin 

 word sio;nifyi»ig- a. mask, because he considered the real 

 insect while under this form to be as it Avere masked. 

 In the English lang;uage we have no common term that 

 applies to the second state of all insects, though we have 

 several for that of dilferent tribes. Thus we call the 

 coloured and often hairy larvae of butterflies and moths 

 caterpillars ; the white and more compact larvas of flies, 

 many beetles, Sec. grubs or maggots'"; and the depressed 

 larvffi of many other insects zoonns. The two former 

 terms I shall sometimes use in a similar sense, reject- 

 ing the last, which ought to be confined to true vermes; 

 but I shall more commonly adopt Linne's term, and call 

 insects in their second state, larvce^. 



In this period of their life, during which they eat 

 voraciously and cast their skin several times, insects 



^ Gentils, or gentles, is a synonymous word employed by our old au- 

 thors, but is now obsolete, except with anglers. Thus Tusser, in a pas- 

 sage pointed out to me by Sir Joseph Banks: — 



" Rewcrd not thy shoep when ye take off his cote 

 "With twitches and patches as brode as a grote; 

 Let not such ungentlenesse happen to thine 

 Least flie with her gentiU do make it to pine." 

 '' For the different kinds of larvas, see Plates XVII. XVIII. XIX. 

 VOL. I. F 



