METAMOUPHOSES. 71 



pillar ; that the antennse and trunk are coiled up in front 

 of the head ; and that the legs, however different their 

 form, are actually sheathed in its legs. Malpighi disco- 

 vered the eggs of the future moth, in the chrysalis of a 

 silkworm only a few days old% and Reaumur those of 

 another moth {Hypogymna dispm-) even in the caterpillar, 

 and that seven or eight days before its change into the 

 pupa^. A caterpillar, then, may be regarded as a loco- 

 motive ^ggi having for its embryo the included butter- 

 fly, which after a certain period assimilates to itself the 

 animal substances by which it is surrounded ; has its or- 

 gans gradually developed ; and at length breaks through 

 the shell which incloses it. 



This explanation strips the subject of every thing mi- 

 raculous, yet by no means reduces it to a simple or un- 

 interesting operation. Our reason is confounded at the 

 reflection that a larva, at first not thicker than a thread, 

 includes its own triple, or sometimes octuple, teguments; 

 the case of a chrysalis, and a butterfly, all curiously fold- 

 ed in each other ; with an apparatus of vessels for breath- 

 ing and digesting, of nerves for sensation, and of muscles 

 for moving ; and that these various forms of existence 

 will undergo their successive evolutions, by aid of a few 

 leaves received into its stomach. And still less able are 

 we to comprehend how this organ should at one time be 

 capable of digesting leaves, at another only honeyj how 

 one while a silky fluid should be secreted, at another 

 none ; or how organs at one period essential to the ex- 

 istence of the insect, should at another be cast off, and 

 the whole system which supported them vanish. 



Nor does this explanation, though it precludes the 



* De Bomhyce, 29. "^ Rcaum. i. 359. 



