34 INSECT TRANSFORMATION 



prothorax ; by means of increased blood -pressure in this neck- 

 region the thin cuticle is made to protrude like a bladder. 

 Six or seven of the baby-insects thus unite their efforts and 

 succeed in raising the lid and making their way between the 

 crevices of the soil into the upper air. But although free from 

 the egg-shells and their tubular case, each little locust is still 

 enshrouded in its amnion (Fig. 18 D). The cervical bladder 

 is therefore again brought into use, by its protrusion bursting 

 the amnion which the insect slips over its head, afterwards 

 withdrawing the legs and abdomen. In some cases the young 

 locust demonstrates its new-found independence of embryonic 

 trammels by kicking the empty amnion away with its hind 

 feet. 



Thus freed from egg-shell, egg-case and amnion the little 

 grasshopper (Fig. 19 a) is started on its open life in the world. 

 A brief examination suffices to demonstrate its close likeness 

 to its parent in essentials of form. The head is of the same 

 shape and although the feelers are relatively shorter than those 

 of the adult and have fewer segments the structure of the jaws 

 is almost exactly the same, and naturally also are the kind of 

 food and the mode of feeding. The legs are almost miniature 

 reproductions of the parent's limbs, those of the third pair 

 having attained their characteristic elongation before hatch- 

 ing (Fig. 1 8 D) so that they enable the young grasshopper to 

 leap relatively far and high as soon as it has thrown off the 

 enveloping amnion. Each foot, as in the adult, has three 

 segments. As previously mentioned, the newly-hatched insect 

 differs conspicuously from its parent in the total absence of 

 wings, and together with this deficiency goes a want of 

 specialization in the exoskeleton of the thoracic segments ; as 

 none of them bear wings, they show but slight differentiation, 

 and with the exception of the prothorax, resemble generally 

 the segments of the abdomen. Another less conspicuous but 

 noteworthy distinction between the adult and the newly- 

 hatched young is found in the hinder abdominal segments, the 

 characteristic reproductive processes being as yet not apparent. 



During its development to the adult condition the grass- 

 hopper has to undergo five of those moults or castings of the 

 cuticle, which have already been indicated as essential to the 

 accomplishment of growth among insects. Before a moult 



