46 THE COMPLETE METAMORPHOSIS. 



thus forms a case for tlie protection of the creature 

 during its period of helplessness ; but this, with other 

 peculiarities characteristic of particular groups of 

 insects, will be referred to hereafter. 



We meet with few more remarkable phsenomena in 

 the history of animal life than this of the metamor- 

 phosis of insects. When we think that the same 

 animal is at one period of its existence a crawling, 

 worm-like creature, devouring with the greatest vora- 

 city large quantities of coarse food, and then, after 

 passing a longer or shorter period in a state of com- 

 plete inaction, inert and apparently almost dead, 

 makes its appearance as a butterfly, one of the most 

 elegant and aerial of beings, passing its whole exist- 

 ence in sporting in the sun^s rays, and deriving its 

 sole nourishment from the delicate fluids of flowers, it 

 is impossible to restrain our admiration ; and although 

 modern science may have stripped the phsenomenon 

 of much of the marvellous which invested it with a 

 greater glow of wonder in former ages, it must be 

 confessed that it has at the same time opened up to 

 us a source of more rational admiration by teaching us, 

 that whatever may be the apparent discrepancies be- 

 tween them, the same elements, nay, even the same 

 parts are present in the one as in the other, and that 

 by this means* one and the same animal is fitted for 

 the performance of two totally distinct parts in the 

 grand oeconomy of nature. 



As might be expected, the complete metamorphosis 

 of Insects, and especially that of the Butterflies, whose 

 habits render the observation of this part of their history 

 peculiarly easy, was very early noticed and admired. 

 Amongst the ancient Greeks the butterfly was the sym- 

 bol of the human soul, and certainly few natural phge- 



