12 METHODS OF INSECT LIFE. 



head, which is often horny (or, in some maggots, in a 

 soft retractile mass), is furnished with jaws or hooks, 

 or some means of gathering up food, and sometimes 

 with eyes and horns ; and according to their kind they 

 are either legless, or have a pair of short jointed legs 

 on each of the segments behind the head, or in addition 

 a pair of sucker-feet, suited for holding by, at the end 

 of the tail, and from one to seven pairs of sucker- 

 feet beneath the body. By some one or other of these 



Fig. 11. — 1, 6 and 7, larvre ; 2 and 3, pupffi of Flies, nat. size 

 and magnified. 



points they may be.easily known from earth-worms, 

 centipedes, millepedes, wood-lice, and the other small 

 creatures that infest the same kind of places. 



Insect larvae feed on almost every kind of animal 

 and vegetable substance, fresh or putrid, and also in 

 stagnant water ; but wherever they live, or however 

 they may differ in appearance, they seem all to be 

 alike in being most voracious in their ajDpetites. They 

 eat and grow, until the skin not being able to stretch 

 further they pause in feeding for a while ; the outer 

 skin becomes loose, and is thrown off, or moulted, as 

 it is termed. In the case of Grasshoppers, or insects 

 nearly alike in the larval and in the perfect state, this 

 change is a wonderful process, for the .young insect 

 has to free itself of the outer coat of its long slender 

 limbs, and of all its outer surface, as completel}^ as the 

 thick fleshy grub or caterpillar, which sometimes, 

 by taking firm hold with the pair of sucker-feet at the 

 end of the tail, can drag itself much more easily out 

 of its cast clothing. When the moult is completed 

 the larva eats again. This progress goes on, according 

 to weather and other circumstances, until the larvae 



