Taking into consideration on the one hand these difficulties, and on the
other the arguments which indicate the Orthoptera as the order most
nearly approaching the primitive form, it is my opinion that the
"incomplete metamorphosis" of the Orthoptera is the primitive one,
INHERITED from the original parents of all Insects, and the "complete
metamorphosis" of the Coleoptera, Diptera, etc., a subsequently ACQUIRED
one.)
Which of the different modes of development at present occurring in a
class of animals may claim to be that approaching most nearly to the
original one, is easy to judge from the above statements.
The primitive history of a species will be preserved in its
developmental history the more perfectly, the longer the series of young
states through which it passes by uniform steps; and the more truly, the
less the mode of life of the young departs from that of the adults, and
the less the peculiarities of the individual young states can be
conceived as transferred back from later ones in previous periods of
life, or as independently acquired.
Let us apply this to the Crustacea.
CHAPTER 12. PROGRESS OF EVOLUTION IN CRUSTACEA.
According to all the characters established in the last paragraph, the
Prawn that we traced from the Nauplius through states analogous to Zoea
and Mysis to the form of a Macrurous Crustacean appears at present to be
the animal, which in the section of the higher Crustacea (Malacostraca)
furnishes the truest and most complete indications of its primitive
history.
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