EGGS, &c. OF ANTS. 81 
jarvee spin themselves a silken covering 
or cocoon, (as is the case with many 
other insects,) in which in the form of 
pupe, they prepare to undergo their last 
metamorphosis. ‘This cocoon is of a cy- 
lindrical form, elongated, of a pale yellow 
colour, and very smooth and _ close in its 
texture. A remarkable circumstance for 
which no cause has been yet assigned is, ~ 
that there are ants whose larve never 
spin ; but this exception only holds with 
those species that possess a sting and two 
knots on the peduncle of the abdomen. 
Thus, there are somelarvee whichundergo 
their change in a silken envelope, and 
others which become pup, without lying 
under the necessity of spinning or weav- 
ing one. * 
* Among the spinning larva, there are some 
whose web is marked with a black point at one of 
the extremities, which has been taken for the re- 
mains of the skin of the pupz, which they reject in 
their preceding state; but as I have found the 
cocoons, thus stained, before the larvae they con- 
tained had undergone their metamorphosis, this 
supposition falls to the ground. I am fully con- 
vinced it is nothing more than the residue of the 
EO” 
