METAMORPHOSES. uF 
would have continued to reside there until its full growth had been at- 
tained. Then it would have gnawed itself an opening, and, having entered 
the earth, and passed a few months ina state of inaction, would at lengtlr 
have emerged an elegant beetle furnished with a slender and very long 
ebony beak: two wings, and two wing cases, ornamented with yellow” 
bands; six feet; and in every respect unlike the worm from which it 
proceeded: 
That bee -——— but it is needless to multiply instances, a sufficient” 
number has been adduced to show that the apparently extravagant suppo- 
sition with which I set out may be paralleled in the insect world ; and that 
the metamorphoses of its inhabitants are scarcely less astonishing than: 
would be the transformation of a serpent into an eagle. 
These changes I do not purpose explaining minutely in this place: they 
will be adverted to more fully in subsequent letters. Here I mean merely 
to give you such a general view of the subject as shall impress you with 
its claims to atténtion, and such an explanation of the states through 
which insects pass, and of the different terms made use of to designate 
them in each, as shall enable you to comprehend the frequent allusions: - 
which must be made to them in our future correspondence. 
The states through which insects pass are four: the egg; the darva;! 
the pupa; and the imago, 
The first of these need not be here adyerted to. In the second, or im- 
mediately after the exclusion from the egg, they are soft, without wings, 
and in shape usually somewhat like worms. This Linné called the /arva 
state, and an insect when in it a /arva, adopting a Latin word signifying a 
mask, because he considered the real insect while under this form to be as 
it were masked. In the English language we have no common term that 
applies to the second state of all insects, though we have several for that 
of different tribes. Thus we call the coloured and often hairy larve of 
butterflies and inoths catenpillars; the white and more compact larve of 
flies, many beetles, &c., grubs or maggots; and the depressed larve of 
many other insects worms. ‘The two former terms I shall sometimes use 
in a similar sense, rejecting the last, which ought to be confined to true 
vermes; but I shall more commonly adopt Linné’s term, and call insects 
in their second state, /arve. 
In this period of their life, during which they eat voraciously and cast 
their skin several times, insects live a shorter or longer period, some only 
afew days or weeks, others several months or years. They then cease 
cating ; fix themselves in a secure place; their skin separates once more- 
and discloses an oblong body, and they have now attained the ¢hird state 
of their existence. 
From the swathed appearance of most insects in this state, in which 
they do not badly resemble in miniature a child trussed up like a mummy 
m swaddling clothes, according to the barbarous fashion once prevalent. 
1 Gentils, or gentles, is a synonymous word employed by our old authors, but is. 
How obsolete, except with anglers. ‘Thus Tusser, in a passage pointed out to me by 
Sir Joseph Banks: — ‘ 
“Rewerd not thy sheep when ye take off his cote 
With twitches and patches as brode as a grote; 
Let not such ungentlenesse happen to thine, 
Least fly with her genti’s do make it to pine.” 
QD 
