STATE* OF INSECTS. 203 



There is not always that proportion between the size 

 of larvae and of the insects that proceed from them that 

 might have been supposed, some small larvae often pro- 

 ducing perfect insects larger than some of those proceed- 

 ing from such as are of greater size. 



ix. As insects often live longest in the state we are 

 treating of, I shall say something next upon the age of 

 larvae, or the period intervening between their exclusion 

 from the egg and their becoming pupae. This is exceed- 

 ingly various, but in every case nicely adapted to their 

 several functions and modes of life. The grubs of the 

 flesh-fly have attained their full growth, and are ready to 

 become pupae, in six or seven days ; the caterpillar of Ar- 

 gynnis Paphia, a butterfly, in fourteen days ; the larvae of 

 bees in twenty days ; while those of the great goat-moth 

 (Cossus ligniperda) and of the cockchafer (Melolontha vul- 

 garis) live three years, or at least survive three winters, be- 

 fore the same change. That of another lamellicorn beetle 

 (Oryctes nasicornis F.) is said to be extended to four or 

 five ; that of the wire- worm (Elater segetum) to five. 

 That of the stag-beetle [Lucanus Cervus) is affirmed by 

 Rosel to be extended to six years ; but the most remark- 

 able instance of insect longevity is recorded by Mr. Mar- 

 sham in the Linnean Transactions a . A specimen of Bu~ 

 prestis splendida, a beautiful beetle never before found in 

 this country, made its way out of a deal desk in an office 

 in London in the beginning of the year 1810, which had 

 been fixed there in the year 1788 or 1789; so that ac- 

 cording to every appearance it had existed in this desk 



3 Linn. Trans, x. 399. 



