VARIOUS NAMES OF PUPJE. 217 



is still capable of eating or moving, or when it does 

 not lose its legs, its popular name is a Nymph. As 

 in the preceding chapter, so in this, we shall not 

 regard these terms, as they only create a great 

 amount of confusion, but shall adopt the true 

 term, pupa, throughout, whether the insect spoken 

 of falls within the one or other of these popular 

 divisions, or not. 



We traced the larva in the last chapter up to 

 that period in its history when it enters its cell, 

 or otherwise retires to concealment, previous to 

 its becoming transformed into the pupa. Here, 

 immured in darkness, and alone, it is left to un- 

 dergo that mysterious struggle of the vital powers 

 which is to end in producing a new and more 

 perfect creature out of one which, however per- 

 fectly adapted to its condition, is very far inferior, 

 as regards the completion of its organization, to 

 that which it is destined to become ; and here we 

 may appropriately pause to take up the history 

 of the curious larva so recently described, at p. 207, 

 as performing the feat of hanging itself up by the 

 tail from cords spun by its mouth ; since it exhibits 

 to us in a striking point of view the shaking off of 

 the old form of larva, and the putting on of the 



