The Life-Story of Insects | Page 9

nymphal stages extend over one or two years, and the insects browse on water-weeds or devour creatures smaller and weaker than themselves. They breathe dissolved air by means of thread-like or plate-like gills traversed by branching air-tubes, somewhat resembling those of the demoiselle dragon-fly larva. But in the may-fly larva, there is a series of these gills (fig. 9_b_) arranged laterally in pairs on the abdominal segments, and C. B?rner (1909) has recently given reasons, from the position and muscular attachments of these organs, for believing that they show a true correspondence to (in technical phraseology are homologous with) the thoracic legs. One feature in which the larva often agrees with the imago is the possession on the terminal abdominal segment of a pair of long jointed cerci, and in many genera a median jointed tail-process (see fig. 9) is also present, in some cases both in the larva and the imago, in others in the larva during its later stages only. The prolonged larval life in may-flies often involves a large series of moults; Lubbock (1863) has enumerated twenty-one in the life-history of Chloeon. In the second year of aquatic life wing-rudiments (fig. 9 _a_) are visible, and the larva becomes a nymph. When the time for the winged condition approaches the nymphs leave the water in large swarms. The vivid accounts of these swarms given by Swammerdam (1675), de R��aumur (1742) and other old-time observers are available in summarised form for English readers in Miall's admirable book (1895). May-flies are eagerly sought as food by trout, and the rise of the fly on many lakes ushers in a welcome season to the angler.
The nymph-cuticle opens and the winged insect emerges. But this is not the final instar; may-flies are exceptional among insects in undergoing yet another moult after they have acquired wings which they can use for flight. The instar that emerges from the nymph-cuticle is a sub-imago, dull in hue, with a curious immature aspect about it. A few hours later the final moult takes place, a very delicate cuticle being shed and revealing the true imago. Then follow the dancing flight over the calm waters, the mating and egg-laying, the rapid death. The whole winged existence prepared for by the long aquatic life may be over in a single evening; at most it lasts but for a few days.
[Illustration: Fig. 9. Nymph of May-fly (_Chloeon dipterum_) showing on right side wing-rudiment (_a_), on left tracheal gills (_b_). Magnified 4 times. [Feelers and legs are cut short.] From Miall and Denny after Vayssi��re.]
In the development of the may-flies, then, we notice not only a considerable divergence between larva and imago, both in habitat and structure; we see also what is to be observed often in more highly organised insects--a feeding stage prolonged through the years of larval and nymphal life, while the winged imago takes no food and devotes its energies through its short existence to the task of reproduction. Such division of the life-history into a long feeding, and a short breeding period has, as will be seen later, an important bearing on the question of insect transformation generally, and the dragon-flies and may-flies afford examples of two stages in its specialisation. The sub-imaginal instar of the may-fly furnishes also a noteworthy fact for comparison with other insect histories. In two points, however, the life-story of these flies with their aquatic larvae recalls that of the cockroach. All the larval and nymphal instars are active, and the wing-rudiments are outwardly visible long before the final moult.
CHAPTER V
TRANSFORMATIONS,--OUTWARD AND INWARD
We are now in a position to study in some detail the transformation of those insects whose life-story corresponds more or less closely with that of the butterfly, sketched in the opening pages of this little book. In the case of some of the insects reviewed in the last three chapters, the may-flies and cicads for example, a marked difference between the larva and the imago has been noticed; in others, as the coccids, we find a resting instar before the winged condition is assumed, suggesting the pupal stage in the butterfly's life-story.
The various insect orders whose members exhibit no marked divergence between larva and imago (the Orthoptera for example) are often said to undergo no transformation, to be 'Ametabola.' Those with life-stories such as the dragon-flies' are said to undergo partial transformation, and are termed 'Hemimetabola.' Moths, caddis-flies, beetles, two-winged flies, saw-flies, ants, wasps, bees, and the great majority of insects, having the same type of life-story as the butterfly, are said to undergo complete transformation and are classed as 'Metabola' or 'Holometabola.' Wherein lies the fundamental difference between these Holometabola on the one hand and the Hemimetabola and Ametabola on the other? It is not that the larva differs from the imago or that there is