[293] The larva of a scarce moth (Stauropus Fagi. See Plate [XIX.] Fig. 4) is an exception to this. The first pair of its legs are of the ordinary stature, but the two next are remarkably long, and so thin and weak as to be unable to bear the body. Pezold. 119. Another minute caterpillar described by Reaumur has the third pair of the legs apparently fleshy and singularly incrassated at the apex into a pyriform figure, terminated by a pair of claws. This conformation is for some particular purpose in the economy of the animal, since they are the most busily employed of all in arranging the threads of her web. Reaum. ii. 258. In the larva of a geometer (Geometra lunaria) the third pair are remarkably long. Illig. Mag. 402. In that of another moth, according to Kuhn (Naturf. xvi. 78. t. iv. f. 3), the third pair of the fore-legs is remarkably incrassated, being twice as thick and long as the other pair, though consisting of the same number of joints, the last of which has claws.
[294] On the legs and prolegs see also what is said above, Vol. II. p. [286]—.
[295] In some few instances these legs are dorsal. Ibid. [281].
[296] The claws or crotchets, though general, are not universal, in Lepidopterous larvæ. An exception is furnished to the rule by the singular limaciform ones of Hepialus Testudo and Asellus of Fabricius, two moths forming Haworth's genus Apoda, which have no distinct prolegs, but in their stead a number of small transparent shining tubercles without claws. The larva also of one of the subcutaneous moths first discovered by De Geer in the leaves of the rose (i. 446), but whose history is fully given by Goeze, Naturf. xv. 37-48, (who has satisfactorily ascertained that it is the true larva of a Tinea of Linné, but of a different habit from that of most subcutaneous ones), has no true legs, and eighteen prolegs without any claws. Another subcutaneous larva, for the history of which we are indebted to M. Godeheu de Riville, is according to him entirely deprived of legs of any kind (Bonnet ix. 196—.); as is another of the same tribe that feeds on the poplar, an account of which is given by Goeze Naturf. xiv. 105.
[297] Plate [XXIII.] Fig. 7. See also below, p. [137].
[298] Lyonnet Anatom. 84. t. iii. f. 11, 12.
[299] Hist. Vermium, 130.
[302] Account of Locust-tree Insects, 69.