Fig. 95.—Membranous legs of the Silkworm (Bombyx mori).
In [Fig. 96] are represented, after the same author, two membranous legs of a large caterpillar, of which the hooks of the feet are fastened into a branch of a shrub.
Fig. 96.—Membranous legs of a large Caterpillar embracing a twig.
Caterpillars have from two to ten false legs, the scaly legs being always six in number. The pro-legs, as the fleshy ones are called, are divided into hinder and intermediate. The former are two in number; the intermediate are rarely more than eight in number.
In the caterpillars which have the full number of legs—that is to say, sixteen—there are two empty spaces, where the body has no support: the one between the legs and the pro-legs, formed by the fourth and fifth segment; the other, between the intermediate pro-legs and the anal legs, formed by the tenth and eleventh ring.
The variations which caterpillars present, so far as the number and situations of their pro-legs are concerned, are the following:—