522 AUTHENTIC HISTORY 



periods as will furnish tliem ^Yith the food necessary to their develoimient. Almost 

 immediately after the young emerges from the egg, whatever its form or structure may 

 be, it instinctively seeks and appropriates its accustomed food. In this state-it is called 

 a larva, in the language of science, but in common parlance, a maggot, a grub, a cater- 

 pillar, or a ■worm. The term larva is from the Latin, and means a mask, becanse the 

 future insect is enveloped in, or masked by the body of the larva. Whilst in the 

 larva state, it casts off its external integument or skin, four or five times, before it per- 

 fects its condition in that state, and immediately after these several changes or moult- 

 ings, its development, for some time, is very rapid. The next state to which the insect 

 attains, is that of the fupa, in which, in the larger number of instances, it bears no 

 resemblance to the state from which it was transformed. The term pupa is also from 

 the Latin, and is applied to inserts, because in this state some of them resemble an infant 

 in swaddling clothes. The perfectly matnred insect may evolve from the i>upa in a 

 few days after it has assumed that state, and it may not do so until another entire sea- 

 son has intervened, according to the extrinsic circumstances of the case. A few hours 

 after this last transformation, the insect has acquired its full development, and all the 

 beauty, size and intelligence it ever attains to. In this state it is called the imago, 

 which is also from the Latin, and implies that it is then in the image of the parents 

 that fertilized and laid the egg. Their periods of existence, in this state, are very 

 variable; in some instances continuing several months, and in others only a 

 single day, or a few hours. This is the love season, during which the sexes cohabit, 

 the females deposit their eggs, and, in many instances, immediately thereafter, die; for 

 as a general thing, insects have not the protecting and fostering care of a living parent 

 on the one hand, or the satisfaction of beholding their posterity on the other. Al- 

 thoiigh the general routine of development is very similar in all insects, yet, there are 

 various excejitions and modifications in their specific transformations, which can only 

 be pointed out in a specific description of the different Orders to which they respective- 

 ly belong. It is in the larva state that all insects aj-e the most voracious feeders, and 

 it is then that they commit the greatest depredations upon vegetation, or any other 

 substances they may feed upon. In the pupa state many of them are entirely quiescent, 

 and jjartake of no food, and many of those that feed at all, in the imago state, seek and 

 appropriate quite a difterent kind of food from that which served them as larvaj. 

 These exceptional cases cannot be detailed here without transcending our limits. 

 But before we proceed to cataloguing, it may be necessary to point out briefly, 

 what animals are comprehended under the term insects. 



" The term Entomology, is derived from the two Greek words entom — an insect, and 

 logos — a discourse ; the fonner word, as well as the synonymous Latin word, insectum, 

 which has been anglicised into insect, being themselves compounded of other words, 

 signifying a cutting or dividing into sections or articulations, whence in fact, we arrive 

 at one of the great characteristics of these tribes of animals; namely, the articulated 

 stracture of the external parts of their bodies, which may be properly regarded as their 

 skeletons, as it serves as supports of the muscles and other internal organs, just as the 

 internal vertebrae of the higher animals support the same parts." 



"Mon. Straus has demonstrated that in the body of an insect not exceeding an inch 

 in length, there are three hundred and six hard pieces, entering into the composition 

 of the outer envelope; four hundred and ninety-six muscles for putting them in motion; 

 twenty-four pairs of nerves to animate them, divided into innumerable fillets; and forty- 

 eight pairs of trachse, equally ramified, to convey air and life into this inextricable 

 tissue." Although this complication of structure is not recognizable to the unassisted 

 common observer, yet, insects are conspicuously divisible into three j^arts; namely, the 

 7i,ead, the thorax, and the abdomen. In addition to the eyes, the mouth, and other 

 organs, the head has attached to it a pair of appendages, of greater or lesser length 

 called the antennce or feelers. To the thorax are attached three pairs of feet, and two 



