THE INSECT WORLD. 5 



The beetles are born in a comparatively imperfect state, and 

 no one could guess from their immature forms that they would 

 eventually become what they do. In the first stage of their 

 existence, after having escaped from the Q.g%, they are grubs or 

 larvae, and they generally remain in this condition for a consider- 

 able time before changing into the quiet and motionless nymph, 

 pupa, or beetle chrysalis. But the life of the mature insect, which 

 escapes fully and elaborately formed and decorated from the 

 shroud of the nymph, is usually limited to a few days. 



The bees, wasps, and flies commence their existence as mag- 

 gots or grubs, and have to submit to metamorphoses like those of 

 the other insects. 



But the grasshoppers resemble their fully-developed parents 

 from the first. They are only deficient in the wings, which of 

 all organs are those the most indicative of perfection. The 

 young grasshoppers have very much the shape of the old ones, 

 and their habits and dispositions also. Old and young grass- 

 hoppers, the first with and the others without wings, the adults 

 and the larvse, live very much the same sort of life, but the 

 young ones change their skins several times during their growth. 

 After the last moulting but one there are traces of wings which 

 swathe the body, and the insect is then said to be a nymph ; but 

 it is not like the quiet chrysalis of the butterfly or the pupa of 

 the beetle, for it is as active as the perfect adult into which it 

 speedily grows. 



Some insects do not undergo any metamorphosis, and in this 

 they are imitated by the hundred-legs, and the greater part, but 

 not all, of the spiders. 



In the sea many of the Crustacea present transformations during 

 their growth and adolescence quite as wonderful and interesting 

 as those just noticed amongst the terrestrial insects. In most 

 of the species of Crustacea successive changes of shape and of 

 habits precede the perfection of the adult form. The heavy, 

 slow-moving crab that crawls sideways over the rocks was once 

 a sprightly, free-swimming larva, and so were all the shrimps ; 

 moreover, there are long-legged, active things, swimming in every 

 sea, which are larva; that have a most extraordinary fate. They 

 are destined to be fixed by their heads to rocks, ships, and even 



