SPHINX. 
219 
1804, in which the caterpillar was so common in 
some counties as to be very prejudicial to the 
potatoe-plants, particularly in some parts of Corn- 
wall, Surry, &c. 
The alteration of form which the whole of the 
papilionaceous tribe undergo, and in a particular 
manner the changes above-described of the genus 
Sphinx, afford a subject of the most pleasing 
contemplation to the mind of the naturalist, and 
though a deeply philosophical survey demonstrates 
that there is no real or absolute change produced 
in the identit}^ of the creature itself, or that it is 
in reality no other than the gradual and progres- 
sive evolution of parts before concealed, and which 
lay masqued under the form of an insect of a 
widely different appearance, yet it is justly viewed 
with the highest admiration, and even generally 
acknowledged as in the most lively manner typical 
of the last eventful change. 
If any regard is to be paid to a similarity of 
names, it should seem that the aneients were suf- 
ficiently struek with the transformations of the 
Butterfly, and its revival from a seeming tempo- 
rary death, as to have considered it as an emblem 
of the soul ; the Greek word signifying both 
the soul and a butterfly. This is also confirmed 
by their allegorical sculptures, in which the butter- 
fly occurs as an emblem of immortality. 
Modern naturalists, impressed with the same 
idea, and laudably solicitous to apply it as an 
illustration of the awful mystery revealed in the 
sacred writings, have drawn their allusions to it 
