I lo The Life-History of Insects 



creature, covered with an armour of chitinous plates 

 and sometimes provided with a pair of long tail 

 cercopods. The grub of a Click-beetle is a narrowly 

 cylindrical or flattened worm-like insect (commonly 

 known as a *' wireworm") with the segments of the 

 body well chitinised, but with the legs very short, 

 and the cercopods reduced to short processes or 

 altogether wanting (fig. 12 1). The larva of a Leaf- 

 beetle (fig. 6^) is a thick, soft, fleshy grub, swollen 

 at the hinder end, the only parts with chitinised skin 

 being the head and the short legs. The grub of a 

 Pea-beetle (fig. 70) has a small hard head and large 

 soft white body, while the legs are usually absent. 

 Hypermetamorphosis.— It is yet more interesting 



and sug- 

 gestive to 

 find both 

 forms of 

 larva in the 

 life-history 

 of the same 

 insect. The 

 '^ young of an 

 Oil-beetle 

 when first 

 hatched is a 



4 (U.S. Dept. Agric). t i u y c 3 m- 



podeiform larva. It lives an active life on plants until 

 it attaches itself to a bee, which carries it to her nest, 

 where it feeds on her eggs. After casting its skin it 

 becomes a soft, short-legged grub ; in this stage its food 

 consists of the honey stored by the bees. Another 

 change of skin leads to a third stage in which no food is 

 taken, the jaws being immovable and the legs reduced 

 to tubercles. A third moult is succeeded by the 

 fourth and final larval condition, the Oil-beetle grub 



d 



Fig. 70. — i. 

 pupa ; £r- 

 5 times. 



Pea-beetle (Branckus pisi) ; c. larva ; d. 

 pea with hollow eaten by larva. Magnified 

 From Riley (after Curtis), Insect Life, vol. 



