lO INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



fowl {Grallatores^ Vigors) in this way acquired 

 length of legs sufficient to elevate their bodies above 

 the water in which they waded. " A proboscis," he 

 says, " of admirable structure has thus been acquired 

 by the bee, the moth, and the humming--bird, for 

 the purpose of plundering- the nectaries of flowers*." 

 Lamarck, an eminent French naturalist, recently de- 

 ceased, adopted the same visions ; and, among other 

 illustrations of a similar cast, he tells us that the 

 giraffe acquired its long neck by its effects to browse 

 on the high branches of trees, which, after the lapse 

 of a few thousand years, it successfully accomplished. 

 Theories like the preceding all originate in the en- 

 deavours of human ingenuity to trace the operations 

 of nature (iirther than ascertained facts will warrant ; 

 and the necessary blanks in such a system, which 

 presupposes much that cannot be explained, are 

 filled up by the imagination. This inability to 

 trace the origin of minute plants and insects led 

 to the doctrine of what is called spontaneous or 

 equivocal generation, of which the fancies above- 

 mentioned are some of the prominent branches. 

 The exjieriments of Redi on the hatching of insects 

 from eggs, which were published at Florence in 

 1668, first brought discredit upon this doctrine, 

 though it had always a few eminent disc pies. At 

 present it is maintained by a considerable number 

 of distinguished naturalists, such as Blumenbach, 

 Cuvier, Hory de St. Vincent, R. Brown, &c. "The 

 notion of spontaneous generation," says Bory, " is 

 al first revolting to a rational mind, but it is, not- 

 withstanding, demonstrable by the microscope. The 

 fact is averred: Midler has seen it, I have seen it, 

 and twenty other observers have seen it : the pan- 

 durinia exhibit it every instant t-" These pandorinia 



♦ Darwin' Zoonomia, sect, xxxix. 3id edit. London, 1801. 

 f Diet. Classi(iue d' Hist. Nat., Art. Microscopiques, p. 541. 



