54 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



exhibit that form and colouring which is, if I may so say, 

 (they keep as it were to their own peculiar castes) its 

 hereditary possession. For the Lepidoptera are a very 

 conservative species of animals and we cannot cross a red 

 admiral with a meadow brown and get a new variety — 

 or a peacock with a tortoiseshell — and I think that some 

 physiologists have not given sufficient attention to this 

 subject. 



The alchemy of Nature is a mystery, and the ])rocess 

 by which the caterpillar, by its instinctive faculties and the 

 powers with which it is endowed, absorbs those elements 

 which are necessary for its future development, will 

 probably ever remain amongst the many insolubles. But 

 still the fact remains. The larva has absori)ed " a 

 quantity" — whatever that quantity may be — or of what- 

 ever character — which it does not throw off or lay aside, 

 except as regards its integriment, when it enters into 

 the chrysalis or |)upa condition. It takes its juices with 

 it into its coffin. It falls into a condition not far from 

 death, insomuch that many have said of such, it is dead. 

 But far from that, from the time it is shut up, by its own 

 will and action, from the outer world, there is a process 

 going on within that gold-spangled or dull coloured 

 encasing, day by day, hour bv hour, may we not say 

 moment l)y moment, a marvellous, ever-progressive 

 development of that which was, into that which shall be, 

 and if that progression be not interrupted will result in 

 a transformation such as could never have entered into 

 the wildest dreams of man to conceive. 



There arc many secrets to l)e discovered in Nature, in 

 its work and in its results, but there is no more difficult 

 problem in mv humble opinion to be solved, than that to 

 which I have referred. The microscope can hclj) us 

 much in many instances, in some not at all ; and though 

 it may reveal the changes which take place hour by hour, 

 in the condition of certain pupa, it cannot, nor can any 



