214 THE LIFE OF AN INSECT. 



is of a dirty white or brown, and in shape it is, 

 though curious, so small, and so uninviting, that 

 few would take the trouble to pay much attention 

 to it. Day by day it swings from its silken cord, 

 and is to all appearance an object without interest 

 to all around it. 



Yet this slumbering, unattractive mass contains 

 a living being. Though the aspect of death has 

 passed upon it, and though we may perhaps be un- 

 able to detect the symptoms of movement in its 

 parts, it is yet alive, and the lapse of a little time 

 will convert the slumbering being, thus singularly 

 hung up to be the sport of the wind and rain, into 

 a creature more extraordinarily active than per- 

 haps any other in the animal creation. While 

 it sleeps, great changes are taking place; it is 

 receiving new organs, it is being matured, deve- 

 loped, perfected, fitted for a nobler existence, and 

 for a higher range of duties, than it has yet 

 known. Such is the pupa. 



From these remarks it will be sufficiently 

 evident that this chapter of our insect history has 

 to speak of a period when there are but few traces 

 of active existence in the insect, and it might 

 therefore be supposed there remained little to be 



