82 SUPPLEMENT ON 



adviseable to change them for others. We have already had 

 occasion more than once to notice the confusion which refor- 

 mers in nomenclature have created. 



Fabricius has given the name of complete metamorphosis 

 to a case in which, in point of fact, the insect undergoes not 

 the slightest change of form, except, perhaps, in the number 

 of feet, and the development of the sexual organs. The 

 majority of the true aptera are in this predicament. They 

 moult, but do not change their forms, and may with pro- 

 priety be termed immutable insects. This is the case with 

 the arachnida, which, however, are now no longer classed 

 with insects, with the scolopendrse, the pediculi, the podura, 

 &c. Others, such as the iuli, wood-lice, &c. acquire some ad- 

 ditional limbs. Among all these insects the three separate 

 states of larva, nymph or pupa, and imago do not exist. It 

 is proper, however, to observe that many apterous insects 

 undergo real transformations. 



It is to the semi-metamorphosis that Fabricius refers the 

 series of chanopes which insects undersro whose forms remain 

 pretty nearly the same, or, in other words, whose larvse do 

 not differ from the nymphs, except in size and dimensions of 

 parts, or in the absence, the rudiments, or the complete de- 

 velopment of the wings. These insects preserve in their 

 three states the same habits and mode of subsistence. The 

 orthoptera, hemiptera, and some neuroptera are, as we have 

 already hinted, in this predicament, the insect preserving the 

 form of the species during its entire existence, though the 

 pupa and larva are distinct. 



The third mode of metamorphosis is that exhibited by the 

 insects which, as the coleoptera and most part of the hyme- 

 noptera, proceed from larvae, which are more or less active, 

 according as they are destined to feed themselves, as they are 

 nourished in advance, or daily by their parents until the 

 period when, after divers moultings which the growth of their 



