OR, MANUAI< OF THB APIARY, 99 



time which insects remain as larvae is very variable. The 

 mag-g-ot revels in decaying meat but two or three days ; the 

 larval bee eats its rich pabulum for nearly a week ; the apple- 

 tree borer gnaws away for three years ; while the seventeen- 

 year cicada remains a larva for more than sixteen years, 

 groping in darkness and feeding on roots, only to come forth 

 for a few days of hilaritj', sunshine, and courtship. Surely, 

 here is patience exceeding even that of Swammerdam. The 

 name larva, meaning masked, was given to this stage by L,in- 

 n^us, as the mature form of the insect is hidden, and can not 

 be even divined by the unlearned. 



THB PUPA OF INSECTS. 



In this stage the insect is in profound repose, as if resting 

 after its meal, the better to enjoy its active, sportive days — 

 the joyous honeymoon — soon to come. At this time the insect 

 may look like a seed, as in the coarctate pupa of diptera, so 

 familiar in the " flaxseed " state of the Hessian-fly, or in the 

 pupa of the cheese-maggot, or the meat-fly. The form of the 

 adult insect is very obscurely shown in butterfly pupje, called, 

 because of their golden spots, chrysalids, and in the pupse of 

 moths. Other pupas, as in the case of bees (Fig. 39, g) and 

 beetles, look not unlike the mature insect with its antennae, 

 legs, and wings closely bound to the body by a thin membrane, 

 hence the name pupa which Ldnne gave — referring to this con- 

 dition — as the insect looks as if wrapped in swaddling clothes, 

 the old cruel way of torturing the infant, as if it needed hold- 

 ing together. The pupa, and so of course the imago, has less 

 segments than has the larva. In the bee, the first ring of the 

 abdomen becomes the petiole, and the last three are merged 

 into one, and thus the number of segments in the adult are 

 only six. The drone has one more. The spiracles and ganglia 

 are also reduced in number. Aristotle called pupse " nymphs " 

 — a name still in use. The word nymph is now used to desig- 

 nate the immature stages, both larval and pupal, of insects 

 with incomplete transformations like locusts. Inside the pupa 

 skin great changes are in progress, for either by modifying 

 the larval organs or developing parts entirely new by use of 

 the accumulated material stored by the larva during its pro- 



