96 GROWTH OF INSECTS. 



maintain that what they fancifully call types, are not 

 like any other known " types/' the moulds, models, 

 or dies struck for the purpose of forming figures, nor 

 are they figurative representations, but the very animals 

 themselves. It is thus that fancy and inaccuracy take 

 the place of facts, and do incalculable injury to 

 genuine knowledge. 



I would have had less objection to adopt, as I have 

 elsewhere done, the term perfect , as applied to adult 

 insects, had it not been in recent times grossly abused 

 in theoretical comparisons of one animal with another, 

 a beetle, for instance, being termed perfect, because 

 several pieces of its mouth are moveable ; and a gnat 

 or a butterfly imperfect, because the pieces of the 

 mouth are joined into the form of a sucking pipe. 

 The distinction of the two forms is certain and unde- 

 niable ; the terms employed are no less impious than 

 insulting to common sense. 



After remaining in the adolescent stage for a due 

 length of time, in some instances only a week or two, 

 very commonly for several months, particularly the 

 winter months, the case covering, when there is one, 

 or, when there is none, the outer skin, is thrown off, 

 and the insect emerges in its adult or full grown state. 



The Twenty-plumed Moth magnified* 



