the plant; hut Avlicn two or three are fixed in this manner 
around the s^em, they weaken and impoverish the plant, 
and cause it to fall down, or to wither and die. They 
usually come to their full size in five or six weeks, and 
then measure about three twentieths of an inch in length. 
Their skin now gradually hardens, becomes brownish, and 
soon chan 2 :es to a hrio;ht chestnut-color. This change usu- 
ally happens about the first of December. 
The insect, in this form, has been commonly likened to a 
flax-seed (Fig. 2d9, natural size and magnified, 
larva on the left). Hence “many observers 
speak of this as the flax-seed state.” Others 
regard it as the beginning of the pupa state, 
wherein the condition of the insect is analogous 
to the immature pupa (hoide allongce) of com¬ 
mon flies. Such indeed has been my own im¬ 
pression concerning it; and even so it seems to 
have been regarded by IMr. Herrick, although he 
was well aware of the actual fomi of the insect included with¬ 
in this “leathery” outer skin of the larva, and of all its subse¬ 
quent changes. AVhile this change of the color and texture 
of the skin is going on, the body of the insect, as remarked 
by IMr. Herrick, “ gradually cleaves from the dried skin, and, 
in the course of two or three weeks, is wholly detached.” 
In a letter dated February 21, 1843, he alludes more 
explicitly to the condition of the insect, in these words: 
“ In two or three weeks after this change of color, the ani- 
mal within becomes entirely detached from the old larva- 
skin, and lies a motionless gruh^ Accordingly, when this 
dried skin or flax-seed case is opened, the insect will he 
found loose within it, and still retaining the magf^ot form, 
as stated by Hr. Herrick, Mr. Worth,* and Professor 
* Mr. James Worth, writing on this insect in 1820, remarked that “ as soon as it 
changes to the flax-seed color, bv rolling it lightly Avith the finger, the temiment 
can be taken off; the worm Avill then appear Avith a greenish stripe through it, 
Avhich is evidently the substance extracted from the plant.” (American Farmer, 
Vol. II. p. 180.) 
Fig. 2o9. 
