290 INSECT TKANSFOilMATIONS. 



whatever other animals are generated by metamor- 

 phosis from a creeping insect, are said to be the off- 

 spring 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 

 which he has actually given a figure in his plates, as 

 Reaumur has done after him ; and also tells us " that 

 wherever the legs are situated in the caterpillar, 

 there is placed the back of the insect which is to 

 arise by transmutation : and, on the contrary, where 

 the back of the caterpillar w^as, there are the legs in 

 the insect to be produced from it. This metamor- 

 phosis," he adds, " is performed in a short space of 

 time, so that it may be distinctly seen ; because, 

 immediately after shedding its skin, this change ap- 

 pears 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, t 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. 

 X See our quotation from Goring and Pritchard, p. 2^^G. 



