THE INSECT WORLD. 
5 
The beetles are born in a comparatively imperfect state, and 
no one could guess from their immature forms that they would 
eventually become what they do. In the first stage of their 
existence, after having escaped from the egg, they are grubs or 
larvae, and they generally remain in this condition for a consider- 
able time before changing into the quiet and motionless nymph, 
pupa, or beetle chrysalis. But the life of the mature insect, which 
escapes fully and elaborately formed and decorated from the 
shroud of the nymph, is usually limited to a few days. 
The bees, wasps, and flies commence their existence as mag- 
gots or grubs, and have to submit to metamorphoses like those of 
the other insects. 
But the grasshoppers resemble their fully-developed parents 
from the first. They are only deficient in the wings, which of 
all organs are those the most indicative of perfection. The 
young grasshoppers have very much the shape of the old ones, 
and their habits and dispositions also. Old and young grass- 
hoppers, the first with and the others without wings, the adults 
and the larvae, live very much the same sort of life, but the 
young ones change their skins several times during their growth. 
After the last moulting but one there are traces of wings which 
swathe the body, and the insect is then said to be a nymph ; but 
it is not like the quiet chrysalis of the butterfly or the pupa of 
the beetle, for it is as active as the perfect adult into which it 
speedily grows. 
Some insects do not undergo any metamorphosis, and in this 
they are imitated by the hundred-legs, and the greater part, but 
not all, of the spiders. 
In the sea many of the Crustacea present transformations during 
their growth and adolescence quite as wonderful and interesting 
as those just noticed amongst the terrestrial insects. In most 
of the species of Crustacea successive changes of shape and of 
habits precede the perfection of the adult form. The heavy, 
slow-moving crab that crawls sideways over the rocks was once 
a sprightly, free-swimming larva, and so were all the shrimps ; 
moreover, there are long-legged, active things, swimming in every 
sea, which are larvae that have a most extraordinary fate. They 
are destined to be fixed by their heads to rocks, ships, and even 
