PREFACE. 



This volume consists mainly of an adaptation of M. £mile 

 Blanchard's popular work on the metamorphoses of insects for 

 English readers. In order to complete the history of the evolution 

 of some of the articulate animals which M. Emile Blanchard has 

 not fully described I have selected much matter from the well- 

 known writings of George Newport, Duges, Charles Darwin, 

 Heroldt, Schiodte, Fritz Miiller, Packard, Sir John Lubbock, 

 Stainton, and Spence Bate ; but at the same time I have 

 eliminated large portions of M. Emile Blanchard's work, which, 

 although very interesting, do not refer directly to the phenomena 

 of metamorphosis. I have endeavoured to suppress all doubtful 

 facts ; and I have introduced here and there some opinions upon 

 the nature of metamorphosis and its relation to the evolution of 

 the creatures subjected or not to it. It is only just that M. 

 Emile Blanchard should be relieved from the authorship of such 

 opinions. 



Students of \hQ Articulaia will, perhaps, be astonished at the 

 amount of work there still remains to be done in the examination 

 of the transformations of many important families of the Insccta, 

 and I venture to express a hope that carcinologists will give me 

 their kind consideration — owing to the great difficulty of the 

 subject — when they read the chapter on the metamorphoses of 

 the Crustacea, and especially that part which is an analysis of 

 Charles Darwin's wonderful monograph. 



P. MARTIN DUNCAN. 



