BEVELOPMENT OF OETHOPTEROTJS INSECTS. 99 



It appeared to me that if it were once determined that the 

 larviB of Orthopterous insects passed the early portion of their life 

 in the egg, in the shape of maggots, something else must follow 

 from this by way of corollary. It struck me that the neces- 

 sary consequence of the early stage of the Orthopteran being a 

 larva in the egg was, that it also passed the chrysalis state in the 

 egg. I could quite understand that the perfect insect was eliminated 

 out of the embryonic elements in the egg, in the same way that a 

 chicken is hatched ; but if the maggot were once hatched instead 

 of the chicken, I know of no means, and no analogy, by which its 

 vermiform character could be changed, except by passing through 

 the dormant chrysalid state. 



The solution which I proposed was that both the larval and 

 chrysalid states were passed in the egg, and that what has been 

 called the homomorphous larva or the active pupa, both by West- 

 wood and Owen, was merely a phase of the perfect insect. Whether 

 I am right in the former view is what I now doubt, but I retain 

 as firm a conviction of the latter as ever. 



The fact which I can testify from personal observation, and 

 which is confirmed by various independent observers, that perfect- 

 winged Hemiptera have been found coupling with incomplete, 

 apterous (quasi larval) individuals, and not only so, (although as to 

 this I do not speak from my own observation) but that two incom- 

 plete apterous individuals have been found coupling together, 

 seems to me at least primd facie evidence that the individuals 

 exercising that function were not larvae, but must have been per- 

 fect, although precocious insects. 



The arguments by which I endeavoured to support the propo- 

 sition that both the larval and chrysalis stages were passed in the 

 egg were drawn from some observations upon the eggs of the Leaf- 

 insect, which seemed consistent with the adoption of Professor 

 Owen's observations that the insect passed its larval stage in the 

 egg, as an apodal vermiform caterpillar ; for it will be observed that 

 the whole of my reasoning depended upon this. Without this 

 basis, I had no ground to go upon. All that I said was, admit 

 that the larva is once a maggot, and I defy you to transform it 

 into a perfect insect in any other way than by passing it through the 

 chrysalis state. I say so still ; but if it is not a maggot in the egg, 

 if it appears at once (that is so soon as it has left its embryonal 

 condition and assumed a distinct character) with the limbs and 

 parts of the so-called active pupa, then there is no puzzle ; there is 

 nothing abnormal : it has only to grow as any other creature grows. 



The instances I adduced in support of the above view were 



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