STATES OF INSECTS. 119 



two hairs or bristles. These antennas the larva has the 

 power of protruding or retracting at pleasure. Lyonnet 

 informs us, that the caterpillar of the great goat-moth 

 (Cossus ligniperda) can draw the joints of its antennas one 

 within the other, so as nearly to conceal the whole 3 . 

 The larva of the common gnat has two long incurved se- 

 taceous antennas, fringed with hairs at some distance from 

 their apex, which consist only of a single joint b . The 

 greater number of Dipterous larvas, however, all indeed 

 except the Tipulidans {Tipularice Latr.), and many be- 

 longing to the Coleoptera and Hymenopiera orders (as 

 those of Curcidio, Apion, Apis, &c), are wholly deprived 

 of antennas. It is a general rule, that the antennas of 

 larvas are shorter than the same organs in the perfect in- 

 sect, the tribe ILphemerina perhaps affording the only 

 example in which the reverse of this takes place c . 



Mouth. All larvas have a mouth situated in the head, 

 by which they receive their food, and furnished with one 

 or more instruments for the purpose of mastication and 

 deglutition. These instruments, in all the orders except 

 Lejridoptera, some Neuropte?-a and Diptera, bear a ge- 

 neral resemblance to the same parts in the perfect insect. 

 In larvas of the Coleopterous, Lepidopterous, and Hy- 

 menopterous orders, we can distinguish for the most part 

 an upper and under lip; two pairs of jaws answering to 

 the mandibulas and maxillae ; and two, four, or six pal- 

 pi 11 : and some of these instruments may be found in 

 most Diptei-a. Each of these parts require separate no- 

 tice. 



Upper-lip (-Lab-rum). The mouth of almost all larvas, 



a Lyonnet 41. t. ii./. I.e. b De Geer vi. 307- 



c Ibid. ii. /. xvi. Comp./. 2 a a with/. 14 a a. 



d In the larva of Cicindela there are six palpi, as in the perfect insect.. 



