106 LIFE ON THE FARM. 



air, now and then tasting the sweets of blossoms 

 wherever they may be found. 



The larva stage is the one in which growth takes 

 place. A caterpillar, for instance, hatches from 

 the egg a very small worm-like creature. This eats 

 for a few weeks or months, growing all the time, 

 then enters the pupa, or dormant stage, after which 

 no growth in size takes place. It eats during the 

 worm stage not only for growth, but also to lay up 

 stores of fat and other material for future use. 

 During the dormant stage, this supply is changed, 

 elaborated, and built into the organs of the adult 

 insect. 



Insects may be classed as soft-bodied animals; 

 that is, they have no inside bony skeleton, but are 

 provided with a more or less hard outer skeleton. 

 With many, it is a mere skin. As growth takes 

 place they find this outside skin, or skeleton, grow 

 too small, and change it from time to time for a 

 new and larger one. This process is called moult- 

 ing, and has an analogy among many other animals. 



Since no growth takes place in the adult stage, 

 some insects take but little food during that time- 

 only enough to repair waste of tissue and develop 

 eggs. Some eat as voraciously during the adult 

 stage as they do in the larva stage. In a few cases 

 the adults eat nothing at all, and hence have no 

 digestive organs. The May fly lives only a day as 

 an adult, but three years in the aquatic, or larva, 

 stage. It eats enough during its long period of 



