7KANSF0RMA TION OF INSECTS. 07 



but a grub or caterpillar, — a little creature as unlike 

 as possible to the insect to which it will grow. In 

 this condition it is called a larva — a name you must 

 remember as we shall often use it. It does not, how- 

 ever, long remain a larva ; for it has to go through 

 two more changes before it becomes the perfect 

 insect. 



When first hatched the larva is very small, but it 

 grows most rapidly, eating enormous quantities of 

 food ; so much so that the larvae of some butterflies 

 will consume in twenty-four hours double their own 

 weight of food. Nourished by this abundant food, 

 and grown to its full size, the next great change 

 takes place, and the larva becomes what is called a 

 Nymph or Pupa. 



The process is very curious. The larva, in the 

 first place, spins around itself a beautiful silken kind 

 of web, called a cocoon. Within this covering the 

 little creature — now called by its new name, pupa — 

 begins to have, or rather to develope, its wings, legs, 

 and other parts, gradually more and more becoming 

 the perfect insect. 



The time taken in this process varies greatly, 

 according to the kind of insect. In some cases a 

 very short, and in others a very long time is neces- 

 sary. At last, however, the pupa state is over, and 

 the day comes for the insect to issue forth into the 

 world ; and it breaks through its covering, and ap- 

 pears, to our astonishment, the perfect insect, now 

 called the Imago — perhaps a butterfly, or beetle, or 

 ant, or bee — but in all cases, with all its parts fully 

 formed and full-grown, and itself able at the proper 



