Natural History and Transformations. 77 



i tions and expansions of hatching, which bring the ventral 

 , parts with great pressure against the shell, there might be 

 , slight friction of the horny points which would wear 

 through the delicate amnion and facilitate the rupture of 

 the shell at the points marked d and e in Fig. 1 0. 



After this is ruptured, the nascent larva, by a series of 

 undulating movements soon works itself entirely out of the 

 egg-shell and makes its way to the light in the manner 

 already described. Once fully escaped from the soil, it 

 rests for a short time from its exertions. Its task is by no 

 means complete : before it can feed or move with alacrity 

 it must molt a pellicle* which completely encases every 

 part of the body. This it does in the course of three or 

 four minutes, or even less, by a continuance of the same 

 contracting and expanding movements which freed it from 

 the earth, and which now burst the skin on the back of 

 the head. The body is then gradually worked from its 

 delicate covering until the last of the hind legs is free and 

 the exuvium remains, generally near the point where the 

 animal issued from the ground, as a little, white, crumpled 

 pellet. Pale and colorless at first, the full-born insect in 

 the course of half an hour assumes its dark-gray coloring. 



From this account of the hatching process, we can read- 

 ily understand why the female in ovipositing prefers com- 

 pact or hard soil to that which is loose. The harder and 

 less yielding the walls of the burrow, the easier will the 

 young locust crowd its way out. 



Though the covering which envelops the little animal 

 when first it issues from the egg is quite delicate, it never- 

 theless in the struggles of birth undoubtedly affords pro- 

 tection from the burrow, and it is an interesting fact that 



* This pellicle (the amnion) is common to most insects. As a rule it is left 

 with the chorion, hut by most Orthoptera and Neuroptera it is shed after leaving 

 the egg. 



