LETTER XXX. 
STATES OF INSECTS. 
LARVA STATE. 
THE Larva state is that in which insects exist imme- 
diately after their exclusion from the egg (or from the 
mother in ovo-viviparous species), in which they usually 
eat voraciously, change their skin several times, and have 
the power of locomotion, but do not propagate. 
Almost all larvee, at their birth, are for a time in a very 
feeble and languid state, the duration of which differs in 
different species. In most it continues for a very short 
time, a few minutes or perhaps hours, after which they 
revive and betake themselves to their appropriate food. 
In others, as in the generality of spiders, this debility 
lasts for seven or eight days, and in some species even a 
month, during which the young ones remain inactive in 
the egg-pouch?, and it is not till they have cast their first 
skin that their active state of existence commences. 
All larvae may be divided into two great divisions :— 
I. Those which in general form more or less re- 
semble the perfect insect. 
II. Those which are wholly unlike the perfect in- 
sect. 
I shall begin by calling your attention to the charac- 
“ De Geer vil. 197. 
