4 TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 



should often lead different lives during the successive stages of 

 their growth and development ; that they should be able to live 

 under most opposite conditions of existence, being clothed in 

 most varied garb ; that they should undergo metamorphoses. 



Every civilised nation, during its early days, produced students 

 of Nature who wondered at the metamorphoses of insects. They 

 considered that there was a complete transformation of one being 

 into another, and that the metamorphosis of the fable was 

 repeated as a common condition in these lowly winged tribes. 

 Scientific research and the results of the microscope proved, many 

 years since, that this opinion was incorrect, and that the trans- 

 formations were phases in the development or evolution of the 

 animal. 



The butterfly — the metamorphoses of which are most striking 

 to the young observer — could never have existed unless it had 

 completed its regular course of development, separated by dis- 

 tinct stages. The insect is born in an embryonic condition, 

 that is, immature and imperfectly developed — born, as it were, 

 too soon. The imperfectly developed insect is the caterpillar. 

 The caterpillar receives in the e.g,% the gift of the principal vital 

 organs which are to be traced in the chrysalis and butterfly, but 

 they have to be modified and perfected, and others have to ap- 

 pear at a more advanced stage of the development of the insect. 

 During the early part of its existence the insect only requires 

 an abundant supply of food, and grows daily in bulk, without 

 there being any changes in its outlines and shape. Then, with 

 increasing dimensions, come repeated skin sheddings and many 

 internal alterations. It attains its greatest size, aftd then traces 

 of new organs are to be discovered by the anatomist. Oftentimes 

 old structures disappear. 



The caterpillar then ceases to eat, and appears to shorten and 

 to contract ; the skin splits and falls off, and there remains an 

 almost quiescent mass, the vitality of which is often doubtful in 

 the eyes of the curious. It is an armoured being, some of whose 

 outlines foreshadow a future condition ; it is a mould wherein the 

 changes of the animal alchemy are proceeding slowly and surely ; 

 it is the dross before the gold ; it is the chrysalis, out of which, 

 in due time, flies the butterfly. 



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