Metamorphoses of Insects. 273 



"Yet start not! — on thy closing eyes 



"Another day shall still unfold, 

 " A sun of milder radiance rise, 



"A happier age of joys untold. 



" Shall the poor worm that shocks thy sight, 

 " The humblest form in nature's train, 



" Thus rise in new-born lustre bright, 

 "And yet the emblem teach in vain ? 



" Ah I where were once her golden eyes, 

 " Her glittering wings of purple pride? 



" Concealed beneath a rude disguise, 

 " A shapeless mass to earth allied. 



"Like thee the hapless reptile lived, 

 " Like thee he toil'd like thee he spun, 



"Like thine his closing hour arrived, 

 " His labour ceased, his web was done. 



" And shalt thou, number'd with the dead, 



" No happier state of being know ! 

 " And shall no future morrow shed 



" On thee a beam of brighter glow ? 



"Is this the bound of power divine, 



" To animate an insect frame ? 

 " Or shall not He who moulded thine 

 " Wake at his will the vital flame. 



" Go, mortal ! in thy reptile state, 



" Enough to know to thee is given ; 

 " Go, and the joyful truth relate ; 



" Frail child of earth ! high heir of heaven ! " 



A question here naturally presents itself — Why are insects sub- 

 ject to these changes ? For what end is it that, instead of 

 ]>reserving, like other animals,* tlie same general form from 



* A few verterbrate animals, viz., frogs, toads, and newts, undergo 

 !iuM.amorphoses in some respects analogous to those of insects; their first 

 form as tadpoles being very different from that which they afterwards 

 assume. These reptiles, too, as well as snakes, cast their skin by an opera- 

 tion somewhat similar to that in larvce. There is nothing, however, in their 

 metamorphoses at all resembling the picpa state in insects. (See, however, 

 Von Baer's article on the Analogies of the Transformations of Insects and 

 the Higher Animals in the Annales des Sciences Nat.) According to Mr. J. 

 y. Thompson, both the common barnacles and many Crustacea undergo 

 metamorphoses, but to what extent these changes take place in the latter 

 does not eeem clearly ascertained. 



c 



