200 STATES OF INSECTS. 



ous heads, like other larvae change their skins several 

 times previously to becoming pupee a . The grubs, also, 

 of bees, wasps, ants? and probably many other Hymeno- 

 ptera, do not change their skin till they assume the pupa, 

 nor the larva of the female Coccus b . 



If you feel disposed to investigate the reasons of that 

 law of the Creator which has ordained that the skins of 

 the higher animals shall be daily, and imperceptibly, and 

 as it were piece by piece renewed, while those of insects 

 are cast periodically and simultaneously, — the proximate 

 cause must be sought for in the nature of the two kinds 

 of skin, the one being more pliable and admitting a 

 greater degree of tension than the other, and being so 

 constructed as to scale off more readily. If, ascending 

 higher, you wish to know why the skins of insects are so 

 differently circumstanced from our own, the most appa- 

 rent reason is, to accommodate the skin to the very rapid 

 growth of these animals, which a gradual and slower 

 change would have impeded too much, or the skin have 

 suffered constant dilapidation and injury; therefore their 

 Beneficent Creator has furnished them with one which 

 will stretch to a certain point, and during a certain period, 

 and then yield to the efforts of the inclosed animal, and 

 be thrown aside as a garment that no longer fits the 

 wearer. 



viii. And this leads me to a subject to which I am de- 



a Reaum. iv. 604. 



b Ibid. 364. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xx. 365. Huber Fourmis 78. 

 M. Huber does not say expressly that the grubs of ants do not change 

 their skin ; but his account seems to imply that they change it only 

 previously to their metamorphosis. 



