INSECTA. 237 



logical classifications to the developmental changes of insects, and 

 the special denominations that have been multiplied to express them, 

 you might suppose the " complete," the " semi-complete," the " in- 

 complete," the " obtected/' and " coarctate " metamorphoses, to be 

 different degrees and distinct species of transformations. But the 

 insects which are said to be subject to the serai-complete and incom- 

 plete metamorphosis pass through the same kind and amount of change 

 as those characterised by the obtected or coarctate pupa. The dif- 

 ferences resolve themselves essentially into the place where, and the 

 time in which, they assume and quit the vermiform state. 



The Orthopterous and Hemipterous insects, characterised in ento- 

 mology by a semi-complete metamorphosis, are, at one stage of their 

 development apodal and acejjhalous larvae, like the maggot of the 

 fly ; but instead of quitting the egg in this stage, they are quickly 

 transformed into another, in which the head and rudimental thoracic 

 feet are developed, as in the hexapod larvae of the Carabi and 

 Petalocera ; the thorax is next defined and the parts of the head ac- 

 quired, at which stage of development the young Orthopteran cor- 

 responds with the hexapod antenniferous larva of the Meloe ; but it 

 differs from both these kinds of Coleopterous larvas in being inactive 

 and continuing in the eg^ almost until all the proportions and ciia- 

 racters of the mature insect are acquired, save the wings. 



Oddly enough that development is called " a complete metamor- 

 phosis," which is permanently arrested at the stage in which the or- 

 thopterous insect enters life, and the only hexapod insects, as the 

 apterous Cimex and Pediculus in which the metamorphosis is never 

 completed, are those in which it is said to be " complete." Bur- 

 meister, however, seems to be the only Entomologist who has pointed 

 out the inaccuracy of the Fabrician definition;* but he failed to 

 free himself from the thraldom of words when he supposed that, 

 in the development of any insect there was, " properly speaking, no 

 change of form, but merely a repeated casting off of the exterior 

 skin.'' -j- 



With regard to the terms incomplete, obtected and coarctate, they 

 indicate, in fact, comparatively unimportant modifications of the last 

 moulted skin of the larva of those insects which are torpid or quiescent 

 at the period of the development of tlie wings. In the bee and 

 beetle {Hymenojitera and Coleopterd), the legs, wings, and antennae 

 bud out and carry with them processes of the last larval integument, 

 which thus forms in the pupa special sheaths for each growing organ 



* Manual of Entomology, by Shuckard, ]). 43. 

 t Ibid. pp. 33. 428. 



