66 METAMORPHOSES. 



live a shorter or longer period, some only a few days 

 or weeks, others several months or years. They then 

 cease eating ; fix themselves in a secure place : their 

 skin separates once more and discloses an oblong body, 

 and they have now attained the third state of their ex- 

 istence. 



From the swathed appearance of most insects in this 

 state, in which they do not badly resemble in miniature 

 a child trussed up like a mummy in swaddling clothes, 

 according to the barbarous fashion once prevalent here, 

 and still retained in many parts of the continent ; Linne 

 has called it the pupa state, and an inseet when under 

 this form a. pupa; — terms which will be here adopted 

 in the same sense. In this state most insects eat no 

 food ; are incapable of locomotion ; and if opened seem 

 filled with a watery fluid, in which no distinct organs 

 can be traced. Externally, however, the shape of the 

 pupae of different tribes varies considerably, and diffe- 

 rent names have been applied to them. 



Those of the beetle and bee tribes are covered with 

 a membranous skin, inclosing in separate and distinct 

 sheaths the external organs, as the antenna^, legs, and 

 wings, which are consequently not closely applied to 

 the body, but have their form for the most part clearly 

 distinguishable. To these Aristotle originally gave the 

 name oftri/mp/icE^, M'hich was continued by Swammer- 

 dam and other authors prior to Linne, who calls them 

 incomplete pupae, and has been adopted by many En- 

 glish writers on insects'*. 



Butterflies, moths, and some of the two-winged tribe, 

 are in their pupa state also inclosed in a similar mem- 

 branous envelope ; but their legs, antennae, andAvings, 



* Hist. Anhn. 1. 5. c. 10. '' Plate XVI. Fig. 6—9. 



