STATES OF INSECTS. { Larva.) 195 
drops of a fluid resembling water were seen to exude 
from it *. 
The skin when cast is often so entire, that it might be . 
mistaken for the larva itself; comprising not only the 
covering of the main trunk with the hairs which clothed 
it, but of the very skull, eyes, antennz, palpi, jaws, and 
legs ; which, if examined from within, are now found to 
be hollow, and to have incased, like so many sheaths, 
similar parts in the new skin. That the feet of the newly- 
coated larva were actually sheathed, as fingers in a glove, 
in the same parts of the exuvia, may be proved by a’ 
very simple experiment: if a leg of one just ready to 
cast its skin be cut off, the same limb will be found mu- 
tilated when that change has ensued. ‘The anal horns, 
also, of the larvee of the hawk-moths (Sphinx, &c.) and 
other similar protuberances, are incased in each other in 
like manner; but hairs are laid flat between the two skins, 
and contribute considerably towards their more easy se- 
paration. Thus, if you saved the skins cast by the larva 
of Euprepia Caja, for instance, you would appear to 
have ten different specimens of caterpillars, furnished 
with every external necessary part, and differing only in 
size, and the colour perhaps of the hairs, and all repre- 
senting the same individual. 
But further changes than this take place. Swammer- 
dam says, speaking of the moult of the grub of Oryctes 
nasicornis, a beetle common in Holland, but not satis- 
factorily ascertained to inhabit Britain, ‘“ Nothing in all 
nature is in my opinion a more wonderful sight than the 
change of skin in these and other the like worms. This 
matter, therefore, deseryes the greatest consideration, 
« Reaum. ii. 75. 
One 
