464. 



Four Species of Insects which feed, 



(a chrysalis is a pupa of a golden colour) j and the imago, or fully developed 

 state. 



Insects produce some interference with the pecuniary interests of man in 

 the amount of food that they consume : it is in the larva state that they eat 

 most. It is in the imago state only that they are capable of reproducing their 

 kind. It seems, from the Magazine of Natural History^ vol. vii. 246, 247., 

 that extreme cold does not destroy the life in insects' eggs or pupas, but that 

 it may destroy the immature larvas. 



A description and history of a species of insect, to be complete, should in- 

 clude an account of its person, and of the circumstances attending it, in each 

 of its four states. This must be, in many cases, an almost unattainable ob- 

 ject ; but it is not the less desirable or necessary for the end of completeness j 

 and the greatest approximation to it that can be made should be made. 



Cdssus Lignipe'roa Fabricius : fig. 74^. ; a, larva; b, cocoon; c, pupa; d, 

 imago. The Goat Moth, the Great Goat Moth. 



Classification. Linnaean order, Lepiddptera ; section, Nocturna Latreille. 

 Natural order in Newman's system, Cossites : in Ent. Mag., vol. ii. p. 383. 



Etymology. Cossus : possibly from the same source as cossum, a viru- 

 lent ulcer of the nose : m relation to the insect's offensive odour. Lig- 

 niperda, from lignum, wood, and perdo, to destroy; in expression of its 



