The Life-Story of Insects

hoolboy watches the tiny green caterpillars hatched from eggs laid on a cabbage leaf by the common white butterfly, or maybe rears successfully a batch of silkworms through the changes and chance

dorsal view; c, full-grown caterpillar, dorsal view; d, side view; e, pupa

n, now coiled up like a watch-spring, now stretched out to draw the nectar from some scented blossom, the butterfly's sucking trunk or proboscis, situated between a pair of short hairy limbs or palps (fig. 2). These palps belong to the appendages of the hindmost segment of the head, appendages which in insects are modified to form a hind-lip or labium, bounding the mouth cavity below or behind. The proboscis is made up of the pair of jaw-appendages in front of the labium, the maxillae, as they are called. Behind the thorax is situated the abdomen, made up of nine

the labial palps (p); c, face; e, eye; the structure m has been regarded as the vestige of a

In connection with the mouth, there are present in front of the maxillae a pair of mandibles (fig. 3 Mn), strong jaws, adapted for biting solid food, which are absent from the adult butterfly, though well developed in cockroaches, dragon-flies, beetles, and many other insects. The three pairs of legs on the segments of the thorax are relatively short, and as many as five segments of the abdomen may carry short cylindrical limbs or pro-legs, which assist the clinging habits and worm-like locomotion of the caterpillar. No trace of wings

to any young animal which di

t, feeler; Mn, mandible; Mx, maxilla; Lm, labium, spinneret projectin

ion raises some startling problems, which have been suggestively treated by F. Brauer (1869), L. C. Miall (1895), J. Lubbock (1874), R. Heymons (190

hors' names will facilitate referen

hworms. On the other hand, metamorphosis among animals is associated with eggs of small size, with aquatic habit, and with relatively low zoological rank. The young of a starfish, for example, has hardly a character in common with its parent, while a marine segmented worm and an oyster, unlike enough when adult, develop from closely similar larval forms. If we take a class of animals, the Crustacea, nearly allied to insects, we find that its more lowly members, such as 'water-fleas' and barnacles, pass through far more s

enough store of food to provide for the building-up of a complex organism like the parent; only the imperfect larva could be produced from it. The larva was regarded as feeding voraciously for the purpose of acquiring a large store of nutritive material, after which it was believed to revert to the state of a second but far larger egg, the pupa, from which the winged insect could take origin. Others again, following de Réaumur (1