228 



THE LIFE OF AN INSECT. 



Let us repeat our caution, that this definition is 

 only applicable to inactive pupae. In the active 

 pupae the same development of new organs takes 

 place, but it does not interfere with the usual 

 actions of life. We must also add, that some of 

 the pupae which we hiust call inactive, never- 

 theless are not wholly without motion, but are 

 capable of manifesting that life is in them, death- 

 like though they appear, by slightly moving the 

 lower part of the body.* All inactive pupae, how- 

 ever, are without the power of moving about. 



At the risk of being thought tedious, it has 

 been indispensably necessary to be thus precise 

 upon this point ; a little careful study of these two 

 or three pages will fix the distinctive characters of 



* M. Bonnet writes of the pupa of a moth, that it can climb 

 up and down inside its cocoon like a chimney-sweep in a chimney ! 

 Some twirl about inside their cocoons ; and it is said that a great 

 entomologist was once so terrified by the curious noise thus made, 

 that he nearly threw down the box in which it was, in his alarm. 



