H ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



mainder of life, which is often an ephemeral span, is 

 to propagate the kind. Numerous adults perform this 

 work unhindered by any other desire, even that of 

 partaking of food. The female lays her eggs, and 

 then (usually) dies, and so the cycle of existence is 

 complete. Many an insect lives merely one short 

 year. Generally speaking, it is in summer or autumn 

 that the parent produces the eggs, which quickly 

 hatch, and in the state of larvae, or more usually 

 pupae, the young hybernate, or sleep in shelter during 

 the winter, and become perfect in the following spring. 

 The mother seldom long survives the laying of her. 

 e gg s - However, these points are liable to much 

 variation, according to the seasons and the different 

 species. 



The term metamorphoses or transformations which 

 is applied to these changes that insects undergo as 

 life proceeds, before they arrive at their perfect state, 

 is at first maybe a little misleading. From the 

 earliest times civilised nations have produced students 

 of nature who have marvelled at, and watched, and 

 endeavoured to explain these strange alterations. 

 The old ideas on the subject were wide of the 

 truth. It was believed there took place a complete 

 transformation of one being into another a trans- 

 formation as startling as though a serpent turned to 

 a bird and that the* most singular poetic by- 

 gone fables of metamorphoses were repeated in the 

 case of insects. Modern research, aided by the 

 microscope, has proved this opinion to be incorrect. 

 These transformations are so many stages or seem- 

 ing pauses in the natural course of a progressive 



