[463] De Geer ii. 400.
[464] See above, Vol. I. Letters [xii.] [xiii.]
[465] Bonnet (ii. 18) mentions, that the young larvæ of a butterfly (Pieris Cratægi), after devouring the exuviæ of the eggs from which they were hatched, gnawed those which were not so: not, however, so as to destroy the included animal, but rather to facilitate its egress. Those also of Coccinella bipunctata which I lately bred from the egg, as soon as hatched began to devour the unhatched ones around them, which they seemed to relish highly. I am inclined to believe, however, that this unnatural procedure was to be attributed to the circumstance of the female not having had it in her power to place her eggs in the midst of Aphides, their proper food.
[466] N. Dict. d'Hist. Nat. xx. 359.
[467] In the human species, after certain fevers a simultaneous and total moult, if the term may be so applied, takes place. I experienced this myself in my boyhood; when convalescent from Scarlatina, the skin of my whole body, or nearly so, peeled off.
[468] The translator, more ignorant of natural history than his author, has turned the "linguis micat ore trisulcis" of Virgil, into "darts his forky sting."
[471] Cuvier Anat. Comp. ii. 596. N. Dict. d'Hist. Nat. xxvi. 165.
[472] Cuvier Ibid. 624.