There is still something more to be said about the coats of the larva. To look at some of them, it would be difficult for a person unacquainted with entomology, to guess at the real nature of the object before him. Some look like dry twigs. Some look far more like little _Cactuses_ than insects. Some are clothed with _hairs_, arranged in the most curious and eccentric manner. Some have hairs so long as to give them all the appearance of very minute shock-dogs. In some, the hairs are arranged like stars; in others, like the quills of the "fretful porcupine." The backs of other larva look just as if they were studded over with little camel-hair pencils. Madame Merian has described the larva of an insect found in Surinam as having the various divisions of its body ornamented with three blue tubercles, like turquoise beads, from each of which proceeds a long, delicate, feathery plume of a black colour. Another, described by the same lady, is splendidly adorned on each side with fifty red tubercles, shining like coral, from each of which proceed five or six long hairs. Some, again, are covered as thickly as possible with sharp processes, like thorns, sufficiently strong and sharp to pierce the skin of any one who incautiously ventures to take them up. The body of a small caterpillar brought from Brazil, is described by Kirby and Spence as possessing a body so thickly planted with spines, like the branches of a tree, as absolutely to wear the appearance of a forest or thicket in miniature! It has been stated, indeed, by some travellers, that the larva of some insects has the power of darting out, when alarmed by the approach of anything, such as the human hand, from as many knobs or protuberances in its back, eight bunches of little stings, with which it inflicts a very painful and venomous wound. [Illustration: _Singularly coated Larva._] The larvæ of some insects again seem as if they were clothed from head to foot in the most delicate and snowy white cotton wool. These may sometimes be seen on our apple-trees; but one of the most singular is figured in the cut, from an engraving given in Baron de Geer's work. The larva is covered completely with a coat of cottony flakes of the most dazzling white, and these are arranged, as will be perceived, with great regularity. The larva has, in this white and warm raiment, somewhat of the aspect of a coachman buried in the old-fashioned great coats with the many capes. Having dwelt so long upon the food and clothing of the insect in the larva form, it is right we should now devote a little space to consider how they _breathe_. Some one perhaps will say, _Breathe_?--do larvæ breathe? Most certainly; and respiration, or the function of breathing, is not more necessary to us than it is to these creatures. For this purpose, however, we must begin a fresh chapter. CHAPTER IV. RESPIRATION OF THE LARVA.