CLASS INSECTS. 395 



they disgorge, and afterwards they strike their heads violently 

 against the point thus softened. When the bombyx has in 

 this manner finished its metamorphoses, it appears under 

 the form of a butterfly with whitish wings (Fig. 372) ; its 

 mouth is no longer armed with jaws as when young, but 

 is prolonged into a proboscis rolled into a spiral ; its limbs 

 are slender and elongated, and its internal conformation 

 differs as much from that of the larva as its external form. 

 Soon after their birth the papillons seek each other; after- 

 wards the females lay their eggs, the number of which 

 amounts to more than five hundred for each of these insects ; 

 finally, after having lived in the perfect state from ten to 

 twenty days, they die. 



533. The bees, of which we have already had occasion 

 to speak ( 332), experience changes still greater, since in 

 the larva state they have no limbs, and resemble little 



Fig . 372. Bombyx, or Moth of the Mulberry. Fig. 373. Chrysalis . 



worms. It is the same with flies, gnats, and a great number 

 of other insects ; thus the vermiform animals which swarm 

 in putrid flesh, and which are known by the common name 

 of asticots, are nothing else but the larvae of the golden fly. 

 Gnats, which at night vault in the air in numerous groups, 

 and which are so harassing to man by their envenomed 

 sting, live in water whilst in their larva state. They are 

 then vermiform, without limbs, and have the abdomen ter- 

 minated by bristles and appendages disposed in rays (Fig. 

 374); finally, the last ring but one gives origin to a tube 

 sufficiently long (t), by means of which the animal draws 

 from the atmosphere the air it requires. To breathe in this 



