STATES OF INSECTS. (Larva.) 161 
The system here stated, of naming and characterizing 
larvee from the resemblance and analogy, in many cases 
very striking, that they bear to the apterous tribes, is a 
very happy and original one, and does its author great 
credit: yet I think in some instances, as I shall soon 
have occasion to point out to you, the application of it is 
not so happy as the first idea. But this is always the 
case when a new law of nature is discovered ; the proper 
application of it is gradually developed, and it does not 
at all detract from the merit of the first discoverer, that 
all the bearings of such law do not strike him as it were 
intuitively. 
Having, however, got the vantage-ground afforded by 
this discovery of my friend, let us see if by standing upon 
it we cannot get a tolerable generalization of the larvee 
of all orders of insects that undergo a metamorphosis. 
But first I must observe, that as in the perfect animals, 
so in their larvae, the different groups are connected by 
certain ¢ransition species, exhibiting characters common 
to two or more of them; and likewise that in many cases, 
which you will see as we proceed, the analogy is as strong 
or stronger between them and the Crustacea (and in a 
few instances Arachnida, and even Mollusca) than the 
Ametabola. My denominations, therefore, will be taken 
from those tribes where the analogy appears to me the 
most striking, and not from the Ametabola alone. 
I shall begin by drawing up for you a list of the Pri- 
mary forms that I seem to have observed, and their cha- 
@ Hist. Nat. xx. 109.) At p. 464 he gives also Mordella and many 
Heteromera as having Thysanuriform larvee. He thinks, that proba- 
bly that of Clerus is of the same description ; to which he suspects 
that many of Latreille’s M/alacoderma likewise belong. 
VOL. III. M 
