^290 INSECT TRANSFORMATIOiVS. 



other animals are generated by metamorphosis from a 

 creeping insect, are said to be the offspring of chance, 

 and therefore never to keep up their species. But 

 the Hon or cock are never produced spontaneously or 

 by chance. In the generation by metamorphosis, 

 animals are fashioned as it were by the impression of 

 a seal, or framed in a curious mould, all the matter of 

 which they consist being transformed.'* 



Goedart, a later naturalist of eminence, both falls 

 into the foolish fancy of supposing that the form of 

 the human face can be traced in the chrysalis, of 

 w^hich he has actually given a tigure in his plates, 

 as Reaumur has done after him; and also tells us, 

 ' that wherever the legs are situated in the cater- 

 pillar, there is placed the back of the insect which is 

 to arise by transmutation; and, on the contrary, 

 where the back of the caterpillar was, there are the 

 legs in the insect to be produced from it. This 

 metamorphosis,' he adds, ' is performed in a short 

 space of time, so that it may be distinctly seen; be- 

 cause, immediately after shedding its skin, this change 

 appears to the eye.'t 



Had this most absurd and untrue doctrine passed 

 into oblivion, or become obsolete, we should have 

 passed it by in silence; but as, like many of the 

 theories of former ages, it often meets us even in 

 modern books,J where we might least expect to find 

 it, we deemed it proper to give it in the language of 

 two of its most eminent advocates, which Swammer- 

 dam justly says contains almost as many errors as 

 words. The best method of opposing and over- 

 turning error being the simple explanation of the 

 truth, we shall proceed to describe the form and 



* Harvey, de Generat, Anim., Exercit. xlv. 



t De Insectis, Exp. 77. 



t See our quotation from Goring and Pritchard, p. 286. 



