Nymphaea

“ Many beautiful Nymphaea hybrids have been raised between the tender and hardy varieties of different colours, and there are now in commerce lovely forms having not only white, but also yellow, rose, pink and carmine flowers. In many gardens open-air tanks have been fitted up with hot-water pipes running through them to keep the water sufficiently warm in severe weather. ”

“ The principal genera in this order are Nymphæa, Euryale, Victoria, Nuphar, and Nelumbium. The flowers of the common White Water-lily (Nymphæa alba) consist of numerous sepals, petals, and stamens, all of which might be mistaken for petals, being principally distinguished by their colour. The sepals, (a in fig. 110,) are green on the outside, but they are white within, and of the same fleshy substance as the petals (b) . The stamens (c) look like narrow yellow petals; they are pointed,255 and bear the pollen in two lobes near the point, which open longitudinally when ripe. ”

“ Eaton in his elaborate work on the Ephemeridæ employs the term nymph to designate all the aquatic or early stages in the development of the young after hatching, and he urges that the old-fashioned usage of larva and pupa seem scarcely worth retention. “Nymphs are young which live an active life, quitting the egg at a tolerably advanced stage of morphological development and having the mouth-parts formed after the same main type of construction as those of the adult insect.” ”

“ By some feeling of impending change the rnature nymph, waiting in its chamber, knows when the time of transformation is at hand. Somehow nature regulates the event so that it will happen in the evening, but, once the hour has come, no time is to be lost. The nymph must break out of its cell, tind a suitable molting site and one in accord with the traditions of its race, and there fix itself by a tirm grip of the tarsal claws. ”

“ The nymph of the Onthophagus of the female sex, a nymph with an unarmed forehead, carries on its thorax a vitreous horn as long, as rich in promise as that of the other sex. If this latter excrescence be an incompletely-realized incipient ornament, then the former would be so too, in which case the two sexes, both anxious for self-embellishment, would work with equal zeal to grow a horn upon their thorax. We should be witnessing the genesis of a species that would not be really an Onthophagus, but a derivative of the group ”

“ At the time of its metamorphosis, the nympha at first seems inactive and lifeless; in six days, the head appears, raising itself gradually above the surface of the water; the body next disengages itself slowly and by degrees, till at length the whole animal comes out of its shell. ”

“ When the nymph sheds its covering and the delicate tunic of the adult form is rent, these strange horns crumble into fragments, which fall away with the rest of the cast clothing. In the hope of finding at least a trace of the vanished things, the lens vainly explores the bases but lately occupied. There is nothing appreciable left: the nymph is now smooth; the real has given place to the non-existent. ”

“ It must appear that the nymph, or young of an insect with incomplete metamorphosis, is merely an aberrant development of the normal form of the young as it occurs in an insect without metamorphosis. This is evident from the fact that the nymph has external wings, fully developed compound eyes, and in general the same details of structure in the legs and other parts of the body as has the adult. ”

“ The design of the upper surface of the fore wing (Pl. II, fig. 17) is simple, consisting only of a broad marginal pale band on a dark ground, enclosing small dark spots in the middle of the interspaces.
This fossil was placed by Heer among the Nymphales, and referred, like the preceding, to Vanessa. Heer lays stress on the non-closure of the cell, but it appears questionable whether this is not simply the result of the defective preservation of the fossil. ”

“ After the nymph has its full growth, some sunny morning soon after daylight, it makes its way up out of the water on to a stem and waits quietly for the old dark skin to split. Then out crawls a soft-skinned creature with gauzy wings. But the body is so moist and weak it has to wait awhile for the warm sunshine to harden the skin and strengthen the muscle. When this is done the new dragon-fly, with its glistening body, flies out from the pond in the bright, warm light. ”

“ In order to breathe, the fully-grown nymph either rises up on the upper side and elevates the end of the body to the surface in order to take the air into the rectum, or it rests with the back of the thorax at the surface in order to breathe through the large stigmata. The young nymphs take in air only through the rectum. The young nymphs of Libellula and its allies, on the other hand, possess large thoracic stigmata, but they prefer to breathe through the rectum. The fully-grown nymphs of Agrion breathe through the thoracic stigmata. (Dewitz, in Kolbe.) ”

“ Nor does the nymph which succeeds this tertiary larva present any peculiarity: it is the perfect insect in swaddling-bands, yellowish white, with its various external members, clear as crystal, displayed under the abdomen. A few weeks elapse, during which the nymph partly dons the livery of the adult state; and, in about a month, the insect moults for a last time, in the usual manner, in order to attain its final form. The wing-cases are now of a uniform yellowish white, as are the wings, the abdomen and the greater part of the legs; very nearly all the rest of the body is of a glossy black. ”

“ The pupa, or nymph, differs from the larva by its much shorter, compressed form; by being encased in a remarkably hard shell; and by the antennae approximating in form to those of the adult. It has short wing-pads at the sides of the body; the front legs are remarkably powerful, and the creature is capable of moving about; the imago escapes from the pupa by the splitting dorsally of the middle of the thoracic segments. ”

“ Well, here, by a strange inversion that confuses all our views on life, a Cyclopean task is laid upon the nymph of the Anthrax. It is the nymph that has to toil, to strive, to exhaust itself in efforts to burst the wall and open the way out. To the embryo falls the desperate duty, which shows no mercy to the nascent flesh; to the adult insect the joy of resting in the sun. This transposition of functions has as its result a well sinker's equipment in the nymph, an eccentric, complicated equipment which nothing suggested in the larva and which nothing recalls in the perfect insect. ”

“ In the nymphs, the thoracic glands are not developed but in the abdomen there are to be found three unpaired dorsal stink glands, which persist until the fifth molt, when they become atrophied and replaced by the thoracic glands. The nymphal glands occupy the median dorsal portion of the abdomen, opening by paired pores at the anterior margin of the fourth, fifth and sixth segments. The secretion is a clear, oily, volatile fluid, strongly acid in reaction. ”

“ To dig itself a cell in this unctuous mass ought, according to our logic, to suit the grub, desirous of a yielding mattress for the nymph to lie on. We are mistaken in our suppositions. The grub retreats to the lower end of its column, retires into the sand where the hatching took place and there makes itself a hard, rough cavity. This aberration, which takes no account of the future nymph, and its delicate skin, would be likely to surprise us if the homely dwelling were not subjected to improvement. ”

“ The larvae also afford characters by which some of the families may be distinguished—those of the Papilionidae for example having a process on the back which can be extruded or retracted.
Owing to the great size of the family of the Nymphalidae, in which the number of species approaches 5000, it is convenient to deal with the eight sub-groups into which it has been divided. The characters serving to mark off the sub-groups from one another are various. ”

“ Of this multiform genus we have many British species, some of the smaller being common below tide-marks, creeping among weeds or clinging like Caprellae with skeleton limbs to the branches of Zoophytes, where their slender forms are not easily seen. In contrast to the stouter body and limbs of Pycnogonum, the whole fabric of Nymphon tends to elongation; the body is drawn out so that the successive lateral processes stand far apart, and a slender neck intervenes between the oculiferous tubercle and the proboscis ”

“ The cell, when once shut, also becomes thinner; and is so much so, immediately preceding the queen's metamorphosis from a nymph, that all its motions are perceptible through the thin covering of wax on which the waved work is founded. It is a very remarkable circumstance, that in making the cells thinner, from the moment they are closed, the bees know to regulate their labour so that it terminates only when the nymph is ready to undergo its last metamorphosis. ”

“ The freshly hatched nymphs of these three groups are much alike in shape, that of Perlidæ, and indeed most of the Platyptera, being more generalized, unless we except that of Chloëon; all closely recall Campodea, and are therefore in the Campodea-stage. These nymphs are indeed more generalized than the freshly hatched nymph of Blattidæ, or any other of the orders mentioned except the Platyptera, to which perlids belong. ”

“ Now if we could safely raise Apatura and Nymphalis into a distinct family—an arrangement which in the estimation of Staudinger182 is correct—439and if this were interpolated between the Satyridæ and Nymphalidæ, such an arrangement could only be based on the larval structure, and that of the imagines would thus remain unconsidered, since no other common characters can be found for these two genera than those which they possess in common with the other Nymphalideous genera. ”

“ But only a few nymphs are ever to be round on twigs where piles of embryonic skins show that hundreds have recently hatched; so it is evident that the great majority either fall off or are blown away very shortly after emerg- ing. Many undoubtedly fall before the shedding of the egg membrane, for the inclosed creature has no possible way of holding on, and even the free nymph has but feeble clinging powers. ”

“ A leg in formation is not more clearly declared than the horn on the corselet or those on the forehead.
Can time be lacking for the thoracic growth to organize itself into a stiff and lasting appendage? The evolution of the nymph is swift; the insect is perfect in a few weeks. Could it not be that, though this brief space suffice to promote the maturity of the horns on the forehead, the thoracic horn requires a longer time to ripen? Let us prolong the nymphal period artificially and give the germ time to develop itself. ”

“ Nymphs grow old as well as women. No rose but turns into an arid hip at last; no Nymph but ends as an ugly Witchwife. Watching as you did the frolic of my little household, you saw how the memory of their bygone youth yet beautifies the Nymphs and Fauns in the moment of their loves, and how their ardour, reanimated an instant, can reanimate their charms. But the ruin of centuries shows again directly after. Alas! alas! the race of the Nymphs is old, very old and decrepit."
Fra Mino asked yet another question:
"Old man! ”

“ Among the insects of incomplete metamorphosis, the nympha is but little different from the larva, and molts and is fed in the same way. Insects of complete metamorphosis act very differently: the larva becomes stationary and ceases to take food; the skin becomes like parchment, and slight movements of the abdominal rings, when they are touched, are the only signs of life. Yet, from the beginning of the transformation, on the seemingly half-dead being, appear distinctly, although masked by a thick veil, the antennæ, wings, and legs. These organs are symmetrically folded Fig. ”

“ Mr. Smeathman states, that this species is found in the same gloomy recesses, and often congregated together in the same manner as Nymphalis Erithonius, figured in Pl. XV.
PLATE XVII.
BIBLIS ILITHYIA. Plate XVII. fig. 1, 2.
Order: Lepidoptera. Section: Diurna. Family: Nymphalidæ, Swains.
Genus. Biblis, Fabricius, Latr. § God. Papilio (Nymph. Phal.) , Drury.
Biblis Ilithyia. Alis rotundatis denticulatis fulvis fasciâ baseos margineque fulvo maculato nigris; posticis subtus fasciis duabus albis transversis nigro-punctatis. (Expans. Alar. 2 unc. 3 lin.)
Syn. Papilio (Nymph. Phal.) ”

“ The animal acquires a hard dorsal covering. The mouth-parts are in the form of a flat blade with two terminal bristles, but with no discernible orifice. The legs are single-clawed, and all more or less directed forward, and they are articulated near the middle line of the ventral surface. Suckers are always present under the hind part of the abdomen.
It appears that these remarkably modified nymphs are entrusted with the wider distribution of the species, and that 464they are analogous to the winged individuals which occur in the parthenogenetic generations of the Aphidae. ”

“ In some cases there are two successive nymph forms; but as a rule the first nymph gives rise by a second moult to the adult form, which again for the third time regains a host. The adults are now ripe for pairing, and the male having enlarged the orifice of the oviduct by inserting its rostrum, deposits therein a spermatophore or capsule full of spermatozoa. The female is often successively fertilised by several males. ”