ENTOMOLOGY IN OUTLINE — TRANSFORMATION OF INSECTS. 



97 



It may be set down as an axiom that all the beauties of the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms are for the purpose of sexual attraction, the 

 whole object of them being the continuation of the species. Plants 

 are plain and uninteresting until they attain their growth and put 

 forth their blossoms, and these blossoms, with their gorgeous hues and 

 beautiful forms, are for the sole purpose of attracting the insects, the 

 little go-betweens in the love-making of the plants, which carry the 

 fructifying pollen from one to the other and make possible a future 

 crop of plants, flowers, and seeds, and so it goes on forever. 



It is so in the metamorphoses of insects. At the last it has ceased 

 to be a gourmand. In many cases, its voracious appetite ceased with 

 its larval life and it lives by sipping the nectar of the plants. It has 

 now acquired its full sexual strength, its full sexual beauty, and its 



FIG. :!-). Caterpillar of Plilegctlinntinx sc.rta. Natural size. 



great object in life now is to be attractive to the other sex. For this 

 purpose the bright colors are developed in some, peculiar markings in 

 others — strange shapes, rapid flight, strength, or other characteristics, 

 having for their one object the continuance of the species. This accom- 

 plished, their life cycle has closed and they pass, like the rest of us, 

 from this stage forever. 



Metamorphoses are not similar in all the orders. In some of the 

 orders we have what is known as "direct,'' or incomplete, metamor- 

 phosis; in this case there is no passive stage, and in many cases the 

 change from the larval to the perfect form is hardly noticeable. In 

 others, the larvae, or nymphs, as they are called, molt several times, 

 and, at the last, where they are winged at all, the wings develop and 

 the insect becomes perfect, or enters upon the imago stage. Among 

 insects of this class we have the bugs, or Hemiptera, the grasshoppers, 

 crickets, cockroaches, and other members of the order Orthoptera. 

 These insects passing through the direct metamorphosis are classed 

 together under the name of Holometabola. 



