loS METAMORPHOSES OF INSECTS. [CH. v. 



days, is surely no wild or extravagant hypothesis. 

 Again, other insects come from vermiform larvae 

 much resembling the genus Lindia, and it has 

 been also repeatedly shown that in many par- 

 ticulars the embryo of the more specialized form's 

 resembles the full-grown representatives of lower 

 types. I conclude, therefore, that the Insecta gene- 

 rally are descended from ancestors resembling the 

 existing genus Campodea, and that these again have 

 arisen from others belonging to a type represented 

 more or less closely by the existing genus Lindia, 



Of course it may be argued that these facts have 

 not really the significance which they seem to me to 

 possess. It may be said that when Divine power 

 created insects, they were created with these remark- 

 able developmental processes. By such arguments the 

 conclusions of geologists were long disputed. When 

 God made the rocks, it was tersely said, He made the 

 fossils in them. No one, I suppose, would now be 

 found to maintain such a theory ; and I believe the 

 time will come when it will be generally admitted 

 that the structure of the embryo, and its develop- 

 mental changes, indicate as truly the course of 

 organic development in ancient times as the contents 

 of rocks and their sequence teach us the past history 

 of the earth itself. 



THE END. 



RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY. 



