INSECTS 



and hide. As becomes a carnivorous creature whose prey must be 

 industriously sought, they display great powers of endurance, and 

 will survive for a fortnight without food in a moderate temperature. 

 Yet in the search for locust eggs many are, without doubt, doomed 

 to perish, and only the more fortunate succeed in finding appropriate 

 diet. 



Reaching a locust egg-pod, our triungulin, by chance, or instinct, 

 or both combined, commences to burrow through the mucous neck, 

 or covering, and makes its first repast thereon. If it has been long 

 in search, and its jaws are well hardened, it makes quick work through 

 this porous and cellular matter, and at once gnaws away at an egg, 

 first devouring a portion of the shell, and then, in the course of two 

 or three days, sucking up the contents. Should two or more triun- 

 gulins enter the same egg-pod, a deadly conflict sooner or later ensues 

 until one alone remains the victorious possessor. 



The surviving triungulin then attacks a second egg and 

 more or less completely exhausts its contents, when, after 

 about eight days from the time of its hatching, it ceases 

 from its feeding and enters a period of 

 rest. Soon the skin splits along the 

 back, and the creature issues in the 

 second stage of its existence. Very 

 curiously, it is now quite different in 

 appearance, being white and soft-bodied 

 and having much shorter legs than 

 before (Fig. 13). After feeding again on 

 the eggs for about a week, the creature 

 molts a second time and appears in a 

 still different form. Then once more, 

 and yet a fourth time, it sheds its skin 

 and changes its form. Just before the 

 fourth molt, however, it quits the eggs 

 and burrows a short distance into the 

 soil, where it composes itself for a 

 period of retirement, and here undergoes 

 another molt, in which the skin is not cast off. Thus the 

 half-grown insect passes the winter, and in spring molts a 

 sixth time and becomes active again, but not for long — its 

 larval life is now about to close, and with another molt 



Fig. 13. The second- 

 stage larva of the 

 striped blister beetle. 

 (From Riley) 



[24] 



