24 INTRODUCTION TO CONCHOLOGY. 



But why, illustrious naturalist, did your observations ex- 

 tend no further ? Saw you nothing, in these darkly-coated 

 and brilliantly-tinted shells, but an arrangement of bright 

 colours to please the eye of taste, or cups and spoons for 

 the rude inhabitants of savage districts ? Saw you not that 

 the Almighty Creator of the universe (without whose per- 

 mission a single hair does not fall from our heads, nor a 

 lonely sparrow to the ground, neither is a shell or a pebble 

 rolled by the billows upon the shore,) provides against 

 their utter extinction tlirough the depredations of sea-birds 

 and rapacious fishes, by investing them in simple colours, 

 while at the same time he spreads abroad for these a constant 

 supply of food, in the desolate sites of earth or ocean 

 which they are appointed to occupy ? 



The Roman naturalist noticed with admiration the trans- 

 formation of several species of caterpillars from an interme- 

 diate state to that splendid investiture of spring, when still 

 preserving their identity, and having passed from the base- 

 ness of a worm, they burst the silken shroud wliich envelopes 

 them, and traverse the air in a form that is dazzling to the 

 eye. The Egyptians apparently referred to tliis interme- 

 diate state, and to the change which follows it, in the con- 

 figuration of their mummies; for the most ancient are 



