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EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



grosser material of plants, it has become 

 an elegant insect, clothed in garments of 

 splendid colours, and takes its aerial flights 

 in fitful gambols, rejoicing in its liberty 

 and sportive in the genial sunbeams' glow, 

 sipping the sweet odoriferous nectar with 

 its spiral tongue from every blooming 

 flower. How wonderful and complete is 

 the metamorphosis, not only in its exter- 

 nal character, but also in the internal ar- 

 rangement of its organization; for now it 

 has thrown off its strong mandibles, and is 

 no longer able to masticate its food ; in their 

 place is a long spiral tongue or proboscis, 

 which is only fitted for the absorption of 

 fluids. Consequently its digestive and assi- 

 milating organs have also changed their 

 character, as now they have only fluids to 

 digest instead of the harder ceUs and fibres 

 of the plant on which it fed. All these 

 remarkable modifications of structure are 

 means by which every part of the body in 

 its different states are beautifully adapted 

 to the habits and wants of the individual, 

 and the insect thus becomes an important 

 agent in carrying on the operations of Nature 

 in the various works of creation. 



The eggs which the butterfly deposits are 

 very numerous. From these arise an equal 

 number of caterpillars, and from their feed- 

 ing upon the nettle, they prevent its over- 

 growth to the detriment of other and more 

 delicately-constituted plants. But the cater- 

 pillars themselves are the food of many birds, 

 who greedily hunt them out ; and some flies 

 of the ichneumon tribe deposit their larva 

 beneath their skins, and feed upon them, 

 even during the time that they are under- 

 going their change, and eventually destroy 

 them. Thus one part of creation is made 

 dependent upon another, and the harmony 

 of the whole maintained in a wonderful 

 order. 



The metamorphosis of the butterfly wUl, 

 no doubt, remind the classical scholar of that 

 most interesting and elegant of all the fables 



of antiquity which have come down to us— 

 that of Psyche. Great learning and laborious 

 research has been bestowed by many men in 

 the endeavour to trace out the origin of this 

 myth; but nothing appears to be really 

 known of it anterior to the time of Apuleius, 

 who lived, it is believed, towards the close of 

 the second century of the Christian era. In 

 his work, " The Metamorphosis," the title of 

 which was afterwards changed to that of 

 " The Golden Ass ;" not, however, it is 

 thought, by the author himself, but probably 

 on account of its affinity to Lucian's story of 

 " The Ass," the epithet of " golden " being 

 added as a mark of admiration. The episode 

 of Psyche is introduced in the latter part of 

 the fourth book, and it is continued in the 

 fifth and sixth ; but the simplicity of the 

 myth, as no doubt it was in its original state, 

 is here greatly distorted by many puerilities 

 and absurdities. 



The origin of this symbolical fable may 

 be traced back to a period much anterior to 

 the time of Apuleius, especially through the 

 medium of ancient gems. 



The ancient Egyptians likened the sup- 

 posed renewal of the earth after the fiood, 

 and the return of Time, to a second infancy ; 

 and depicted the renovation of the world 

 under the emblem of a child, and called him 

 Eros, that is to say. Love. Hesiod, in his 

 " Theogony," 1. 120, in alluding to the state 

 of Nature after the deluge, says : "First Chaos 

 was produced, then TeUus, then Love, the 

 most beautiful of the gods ; Love the soother 

 and softener, who relaxed the weary limbs." 

 Aristophanes, in his comedy of the " Birds," 

 1. 695, says, in his poetical language of the 

 same event : " Sable-winged night then pro- 

 duced an egg, whence sprouted up, like a 

 blossom, Eros, the lovely and desirable, with 

 his glossy golden wings." Love is here used 

 emblematic of the Divine mercy for the human 

 race. The Greeks introduced as its com- 

 panion, the personification of the soul, 

 originally in the form of the aurelia, or 



