PICTORIAL AND POETICAL, 411 



intermingling a blaze oF glory with the nodding branches of the 

 willows, which dances in mazy curls upon the rippling river — as 

 its radiant disk sinks behind the dim blue hills, — in <'ountle.ss 

 myriads squadron after squadron pour farth the bands of the 

 Ephemera. Th^ sun sets — a mist obscures the surface of the 

 river, and the air is filled with a living cloud, dark as the darkest 

 folds of the robe of night. — Dim and dubious twilight in a long 

 line rests upon the hilly outline in the east — bats are flisking 

 among the willows — silent and sullen flows the current of the 

 river— the morning star faintly quivers in its eddies. — But where 

 is that ephemeral cloud — v/here the countless insects whose 

 murmur of unnumbered wings gave a voice to the evening ? — 

 All are extinguished ! the sweets of that transitory existence 

 are over — life has been ended ere waW begun^ 



I ought here to mention the Phryganidce — whose larvae inhabit 

 very singularly constructed mansions made of leaves, sticks, and 

 even shells, with their inhabitants within them. Here, too, we 

 have a geological link worthy attention ; for Mr. Lyell mentions 

 a rock of fresh- water lime-stone in Auvergne, Fi*ance, composed 

 entirely of the cases of a large species of Phryganea, which 

 *' swarmed in the Eocene lakes of Auvergne,"* The cases are of 

 course abandoned when the perfect insect ceases to be a *' lady of 

 the lake,^ and leaving her singularly formed boat, becomes 

 thenceforth a denizen of the air. 



The transformations of insects have been considered if not t(» 

 indicate a change in the nature of man, yet as shadowing forth 

 the possibility of onr futm-e state being exceedingly dissimilar to 

 our present one, without altogether losing sight of ou-i' identity. 

 The larva of the gnat breathes as I have shown by a very dif- 

 ferent apparatus to that of the perfect fly, and although man 

 now finds a rare atmosphere unfitted for his existence, we may 

 easily conceive that when the necessity for a material habitation 

 for the soul is at an end, we may have powers allotted us of 

 which we can have now but a very imperfect idea; but with 

 these powers, whatever they may be, we shall assuredly retain 

 the faculty of memory. The wonderful economy and contrivance 

 insects display has been usually ascribed to a blind instinct, that 

 allows them no choice ; but this appears to me to be incorrect. 

 Memory is generally allowed to the perfect insect, and why not 

 then to the animal in all its states ? This would in some measure 

 solve the mystery; and we all know how powerful memory is in 

 early life. We can indeed, understand the instinct that prompts 

 the infant to smile in its mother's face, and seek the breast that 

 imparts its nutriment; but without memory no instinct would 

 enable a man to find out the scenes of his early existence, or 

 induce him to return to the land of his birth. Instinct, then, I 

 will allow, causes the young caterpillar to feed upon the leaf his 

 parent has placed him upon ; and the aquatic larva to swim iu 

 the water in which he finds himself, and to partake of the food 



* Lyell's Principles of Goolojjy, Vol. 4, p. 100. 3rd edit. 



Juhj, 1835.— VOL. II. NO. XII. 3 H 



