MEMOIR OF SWAMMERDAM. 39 



works, but Swammerdam's figure greatly surpasses 

 all that have subsequently appeared (See Biblia 

 Naturce, pi. 39.) It was figured before his time, 

 both by Goedart and Aldrovandus, the former of 

 whom called it the chamseleon, from having kept 

 an individual alive for nine months without food ; 

 the latter names it the water intestine. Both were 

 unacquainted with its metamorphosis, and nearly 

 all its most remarkable peculiarities ; Swammer- 

 dam's account leaves little to be desired. He was 

 so much struck with the beauty of its parts, and 

 their exquisite adaptation to the functions they per- 

 form, that he frequently breaks out in lamentations 

 of his own inadequacy to examine them aright, and 

 in adoration of the power and goodness which they 

 so signally manifest. " God, thy works infinitely 

 surpass the reach of our feeble understandings ; all 

 that we actually know of them, or ever can know, 

 is but a faint and lifeless shadow of thy adorable 

 perfections. The brightest understandings fail in 

 the contemplation of them, and are obliged to con- 

 fess, that all this boasted penetration is but short 

 sightedness, when employed in fathoming the depth 

 of that power, goodness, and wisdom, it has pleased 

 thee to exert in the lowest part of thy creation. 



" The transformation from a worm to a fly, ob- 

 servable in this insect, presents us with a real mira- 

 cle, and may justly be considered, as a laying down 

 of old worn-out parts, and an acquisition of new 

 perfect ones instead of them ; in fine, as a total 

 change of an old to a new, and of an imperfect to a 



