22 TRUE TALES OF THE INSECTS. 



acting as a prop against the walls of the cell, the larva, 

 by giving an undulatory movement to the abdomen, is 

 enabled to make its way towards the operculum with 

 ease. There, with its back, it raises the opercular scale 

 which closes it in, and gains its liberty to the outer world 

 in the most natural manner. 



No sooner is the flap pushed the least bit ajar than it 

 shuts to by its own elasticity. It acts, indeed, like the 

 spring lid of a box, so that the posterior legs and the 

 long anal threads of the larva may be caught as in a 

 vice ; and should the spring be too strong, and the larva 

 be unable to profit by the assistance in drawing itself 

 from its skin, it perishes, for want of power to extricate 

 itself. In its other sheddings the insect is no less obliged, 

 in order to get rid of the useless tight case, to fix to 

 some object, in default of which it has no option but to 

 work itself out of what has become its prison, by tearing 

 its coat with its claws. 



A single capsule gives birth to from fifty to a hundred 

 larvae. 



These creatures, in form almost the very image of 

 their parents, are in the beginning excessively delicate, 

 soft, and pale, and upon issuing from their cradle they 

 disperse, but do not venture far from its immediate 

 vicinity. No long time is spent ere they betake them- 

 selves to hiding, among leaves and under stones, there 

 to undergo their first moult. As yet they have not 



