ADOLESCENCE OF INSECTS. 93 



These infant insects, indeed, often throw off their 

 skins, or moult, as it may be termed, during their 

 growth, the old skin partly splitting and sloughing off ; 

 but this old skin is no more a mask than the feathers of 

 a bird, which are moulted once or twice a year, can be 

 called a mask. 



Like most young animals, all caterpillars, grubs, and 

 maggots, eat voraciously, as it is necessary to supply 

 nutriment for their increasing growth. 



ADOLESCENCE OF INSECTS. 



Adolescent insects ; a, the peacock butterfly j 6, the blue- 

 bottle fly j c, the cockchafer ; d, the dragon-fly. 



THE English word adolescence, though derived, like 

 infancy, from the Latin, is well understood as applied to 

 the period of life between infancy and full growth. 

 Except this, there is no term which occurs to me as 

 applicable to the stage of insects succeeding the one 

 just described. I have only adopted it here, however, 

 not because I think it good, but because I cannot find 

 one more suitable. 



In this stage, insects differ more remarkably from 

 the larger animals than almost in any other particular ; 

 for while the latter remain active and continue, as 

 before, to eat and grow, the former in few instances do 

 neither, but remain in a very singular state of torpor. 



