DEVELOPEMENT OF INSECTS. ^T-i 



indications of life. In this condition it remains for 

 a certain period: its internal system continuing in 

 secret the further consolidation of the organs; until 

 the period arrives when it is qualified to emerge 

 into the world, by bursting asunder the fetters 

 which had confined it, and to commence a new 

 career of existence. The worm, which so lately 

 crawled with a slow and tedious pace along the 

 surface of the ground, now ranks among the spor- 

 tive inhabitants of air ; and expanding its newly 

 acquired wings, launches forward into the element 

 on which its powers can be freely exerted, and 

 which is to waft it to the objects of its gratification, 

 and to new scenes of pleasure and delight. 



Thus do the earlier stages of the developement 

 of insects exhibit a recurrence of those structures 

 which are found in the lowest department of this 

 series of animals. The larva, or infantile stage of 

 the life of an insect, is, in all its mechanical rela- 

 tions, a mere worm. The imago, or perfect state, 

 on the other hand, exhibits strong analogies with 

 the crustaceous tribes, not only in the general form 

 of the body, but also in the consolidated texture of 

 its organs, (especially of those which compose its 

 skeleton) and in the possession of rigid levers, 

 shaped into articulated limbs, and furnished with 

 large and powerful muscles, from all which cir- 

 cumstances great freedom and extent of motion are 

 derived. To this elaborate frame, nature has added 

 wings, those refined instruments of a higher order 

 of movements, subservient to a more expanded 

 range of existence, and entitling the beings on 

 which they have been conferred to the most ele- 

 vated rank among the lesser inhabitants of the 

 slobe. 



