Fig. The metamorphosis of a grasshopper, Melanoplus atlanus, showing its six stages of development from the newly-hatched nymph to the fully-winged adult. (Twice natural size)
Most young insects grow rapidly because they must compress their entire lives within the limits of a single season. Generally a few weeks suffice for them to reach maturity, or at least the mature growth of the form in which they leave the egg, for, as we shall see, many insects complicate their lives by having several different stages, in each of which they present quite a different form. The grasshopper, however, is an insect that grows by a direct course from its form at hatching to that of the adult, and at all stages it is recognizable as a grasshopper (Fig. 9). A young moth, on the other hand, hatching in the