LIFE HISTORY OF INSECTS 



321 



Life history of insects. If we should watch the life 

 of an animal from the egg to the time it develops into an 

 adult and dies we would see its life history. There is a 

 great similarity in the life history of those insects which pass 

 through a com- 

 plete metamor- 

 phosis. They 

 have four stages. 

 The egg is the 

 first stage, often 

 laid on a plant 

 upon which the 

 young insect will 

 feed. This stage 

 is followed by 

 one known as 

 the larval stage, 

 during which the 

 animal feeds and 

 grows rapidly. 

 Familiar exam- 

 ples of the larvae 

 are the caterpil- 



i u 



lars Or WOrmS 



we see eating 

 our garden vegetables, or the maggots we see in decay- 

 ing meat. After the larva has eaten and grown larger, 

 shedding its skin several times, it settles down, and if a 

 moth, spins a cocoon, and becomes quiet for a period. 

 This is known as the pupal stage. Finally the adult in- 

 sect breaks out from the pupa, and lives a relatively 

 short life, cluring which its eggs are laid, and the life his- 



H.-WHIT. CIV. SCI. IN THE HOME 21 



Monarch butterfly: adults, larva, and pupa on their food 

 plant, the milkweed. (From a photograph loaned by the 

 American Museum of Natural History.) 



