220 STATES OF INSECTS. (Larva.) 
tree or shrub, of a very close silk, and covered by a cir- 
cular operculum, which the animal pushes off when it 
assumes the imago; this is ovate or conico-ovate; others 
again are globose*; others are conical, as that of Ga- 
stropacha quercifolia ; others almost fusiform ° (Odenestis 
potatoria). Reaumur received one from Arabia which 
was nearly cylindrical’. Those of T. prasinana before 
noticed, and many other Tortrices, are shaped like a re- 
versed boat *; that of Saturnia Spini and others of the 
same tribe, like a Florence flask with a wide and short 
neck, ‘The cocoon of Zyg@ena Filipenduleé resembles a 
grain of barley. Another cocoon in my cabinet, of very 
slight net-work, is shaped something like an air-balloon. 
But that most remarkable for its form and characters, 
is one I received from the rich cabinet above quoted. 
This, which is of an unusually close texture, is suspend- 
ed by a thread more than two inches long from the point 
of a leaf; it then swells into a perfect cone, at the base 
about four-fifths of an inch in diameter and half an inch 
in length, and covered with scattered setiform appen- 
dages: from the centre of the base projects a large hemi- 
spherical protuberance, which terminates in a long stalk, 
much thicker than the thread that suspends the cocoon. 
There is commonly no difference between the shape of 
cocoons spun by larvee which are to give birth to dif- 
ferent sexes of the same species. The silk-worm cocoons, 
however, which will produce male moths, have more 
silk at the ends, and consequently are more round than 
those which are to produce females : but the difference 
is not striking. 
* Merian Surinam. t. xv. » Reaum. il, ¢. xxiii. f. 5. 
“ Sepp. iv. é. vill. f. 5. * Reaum. i. ¢, xliv. f. 2. 
© Pirate XVII. Fie. 7. 
