METAMORPHOSES. 



51 



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 larvae of butter- 

 flies and moths caterpillars; the white and more compact 

 larvae of flies, many beetles, &c. gruhs or maggots ^ ; and the 

 depressed larvae of many other insects worms. The two 

 former terms I shall sometimes use in a similar sense, reject- 

 ing the last, which ought to be confined to true vermes; 

 but I shall more commonly adopt Linne's term, and call 

 insects in their second state, larvce. 



In this period of their life, during which they eat vora- 

 ciously and cast their skin several times, insects live a shorter 

 or longer period, some only a few days or weeks, others 

 several months or years. They then cease eating ; fix them- 

 selves in a secure place ; their skin separates once more and 

 discloses an oblong body, and they have now attained the 

 third 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 in swaddling clothes, according to 

 the barbarous fashion once prevalent here, and still retained 

 in many parts of the Continent, Linne has called it the pupa 

 state, and an insect when under this form a pupa — terms 

 which will be here adopted in the same sense. In this state, 

 most insects eat no food ; are incapable of locomotion ; and, 

 if opened, seem filled with a watery fluid, in which no distinct 

 organs can be traced. Externally, however, the shape of the 

 pupae of diflbrent tribes varies considerably, and diflerent 

 names have been applied to them. 



Those of the beetle and bee tribes are covered with a 

 membranous skin, enclosing in separate and distinct sheaths 

 the external organs, as the antennae, legs, and wings, which 

 are consequently not closely applied to the body, but have 



1 Gentils, or gentles, is a synonymous word employed by our old authors, but 

 is now 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 gentils do naake it to pine." 



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