202 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



was prodigiously distended.* The same must have 

 been the case with the French prisoner at Liverpool, 

 who, on the testimony of Dr Cochrane, consumed, 

 in one day, sixteen pounds of raw meat and tallow 

 candles, besides five bottles of porter.t 



The mandibles of caterpillars, which do not act 

 perpendicularly like the jaws of quadrupeds, but ho- 

 rizontally, are for the most part very sharp and strong, 

 being of a hard, horny substance, arid moved by 

 powerful muscles. They are, for the most part, 

 slightly bent in the form of a reaping-hook; having 

 the concavity indented with tooth-shaped projections, 

 formed out of the substance of the jaw, and not socketed 

 as the teeth of quadrupeds. These are made to meet 

 like the blades of a pair of pincers; and in some cases 

 they both chop and grind the food.J Besides these 

 there is a pair of jaws (maxillae) placed on each side 

 of the middle portion of the under lip; and from their 

 being of a softer substance they seem to be more for 

 the purpose of retaining the food n than for mastication. 

 This formidable apparatus for masticating ( Troplii) 

 is well adapted to supply the large demands of the 

 capacious stomachs of larvae; and when we consider 

 that all of them are employed in eating at least for 

 ten or twelve hours in the day, and a great number 

 during the night, we need not wonder at their ex- 

 tensive ravages upon the substances on which they 

 feed. It may be interesting, however, to give a few 

 examples of their destructiveness; and with this view 

 it will be convenient to consider them under the three 

 popular names of caterpillars, grubs, and maggots. 



CATERPILLARS. 

 The ravages of caterpillars are amongst the most 



* M. Percy in Rapport d'Institute Nationelle. 

 + Med. and Phys. Journ., iii, 209. 

 % Cuvier, Anat. Com., iii, 322. 



