Larvcc of the Hymenopterci. 
121 
XXII. On the Apod Larvce of the Hymenoptcra, with 
reference to the segmental Theory of Annulose Animals. 
By J. O. Westwood, F.L.S., fyc. 
[Read April 6, 1835.] 
It would doubtless be considered a startling assertion, were the 
student to be informed that a larva is a more perfect animal than 
its imago, and yet when we perceive in the former a series of 
segments equally developed and exceeding in number the articu- 
lations of the body of the latter, such is the conclusion which 
might ordinarily, and at the first sight, be deduced therefrom. 
The apparent loss of segments, which takes place during the 
passage of insects in general to their final state, is one of great 
interest, not only as a remarkable physiological fact, but also with 
reference to the numerical distribution of segments in annidose 
animals, whereupon depends the accurate determination of those 
exceedingly difficult and subtle investigations, having for their 
object the analogical relations existing between the oral and loco- 
motive organs of the Crustacea, Arachnida, and Insecta. In like 
manner the point at issue, between Mr. Mac Leay and Messrs. 
Latreille and Audouin, relative to the true analogy of the terminal 
segments of the thorax of the Hymenoptera, will receive much 
elucidation by an examination of this question. 
Let us shortly, in the first place, notice the views upon this 
subject entertained by our greatest philosophical inquirers, La- 
treille, Mac Leay, and Kirby. The first of these authors, in his 
endeavours to resolve the various forms of all annulose animals to 
one general type, considered in a memoir upon the external 
organization of insects, that the body of an imago is composed of 
thirteen segments, allowing one for the head, five for the thorax, 
and seven for the abdomen, supposing that the wings are aeros- 
tatic in their origin and structure, auxiliary to the legs, and bor- 
rowed in part from the respiratory organs. 
Mr. Mac Leay, in the Horce Entomologicce, adopted Latreille’s 
ideas relative to the two segments which exist in the larva, but 
disappear in the imago of some species, although his observations 
thereupon show that his opinion was scarcely reconcileable thereto. 
He says, “ If Latreille supposes that these two in the larvre of 
Oryctcs are transferred to the abdomen of the imago, it is not true 
in fact, since no more than seven can be found in the abdomen ; 
nor would it, if true, coincide with his theory, making wings take 
