196 STATES OF INSECTS. 



mur noticed the larva of Zygcena Filipemhdtf, previously 

 to its last moult, actually biting off and detaching several 

 portions of its old skin; and before this, drops of a fluid 

 resembling water were seen to exude from it a . 



The skin when cast is often so entire, that it might be 

 mistaken for the larva itself; comprising not only the 

 covering of the main trunk with the hairs which clothed 

 it, but of the very skull, eyes, antennae, palpi, jaws, and 

 legs ; which, if examined from within, are now found to 

 be hollow, and to have incased, like so many sheaths, 

 similar parts in the new skin. That the feet of the newly- 

 coated larva were actually sheathed, as fingers in a glove, 

 in the same parts of the exuviae, may be proved by a 

 very simple experiment : if a leg of one just ready to 

 cast its skin be cut off, the same limb will be found mu- 

 tilated when that change has ensued. The anal horns, 

 also, of the larvae of the hawk-moth (Sphinx L.) and other 

 similar protuberances, are incased in each other in like 

 manner ; but hairs are laid flat between the two skins, 

 and contribute considerably towards their more easy se- 

 paration. Thus, if you saved the skins cast by the larva 

 of Callimorpha Caja, for instance, you would appear to 

 have ten different specimens of caterpillars, furnished 

 with every external necessary part, and differing only in 

 size, and the colour perhaps of the hairs, and all repre- 

 senting the same individual. 



But further changes than this take place. Swammer- 

 dam says, speaking of the moult of the grub of Oryctes 

 nasicornis, a beetle common in Holland, but not satis- 

 factorily ascertained to inhabit Britain, " Nothing in all 

 nature is in my opinion a more wonderful sight than the 



* Reaum. ii. 75.. 



