HISTORY OF 



The hindmost feet, whatever be their number, 

 are soft and flexible, and are called membrana- 

 ceous. Caterpillars also, with regard to their ex- 

 ternal figure, are either smooth or hairy. The 

 skin of the first kind is soft to the touch, or hard, 

 like shagreen ; the skin of the latter is hairy, and 

 as it were thorny, and generally, if handled, 

 stings like nettles. Some of them even cause 

 this stinging pain, if but approached too nearly. 



Caterpillars in general have six small black 

 spots placed on the circumference of the fore 

 ring, and a little to the side of the head. Three 

 of these are larger than the rest, and are convex 

 and transparent : these Reaumur takes to be the 

 eyes of the caterpillar ; however, most of these 

 reptiles have very little occasion for sight, and 

 seem only to be directed by their feeling. 



But the parts of the caterpillar's body which 

 most justly demand our attention, are the stigmata, 

 as they are called ; or those holes on the sides of 

 its body, through which the animal is supposed to 

 breathe. All along this insect's body on each 

 side, these holes are easily discoverable. They 

 are eighteen in number, nine on a side, rather 

 nearer the belly than the back ; a hole for every 

 ring of which the animal's body is composed, ex- 

 cept the second, the third, and the last. These 

 oval openings may be considered as so many 

 mouths, through which the insect breathes ; but 

 with this difference, that as we have but one pair 

 of lungs, the caterpillar has no less than eighteen. 

 It requires no great anatomical dexterity to dis- 

 cover these lungs in the larger kind of caterpil- 



