METAMORPHOSIS. 79 



real difference exists only in the circumstance of one group 

 retaining the covering of the previous state longer than the 

 other group. If we select two well-known insects, the 

 breeze-fly and the honey-bee, we shall find little or no dif- 

 ficulty in tracing the similarity. The grubs or maggots 

 from which these insects proceed, are not very dissimilar ; 

 but the grub of the fly merely ceases to feed, becomes qui- 

 escent, and hardens externally (page 25, fig. d), while that 

 of the bee ceases to eat, is walled in its cell by the workers, 

 lines its cell with silk, casts its covering and becomes qui- 

 escent, every limb being distinct, detached, and perfect (p. 

 40), but enveloped in a delicately soft and smooth skin, 

 and perfectly motionless. This is the true Necromorphous 

 character. Now the breeze-fly, on the contrary, is Amor- 

 phous ; but if a few days before the perfect insect appears, 

 the hard and apparently inorganic case which covers it be 

 gently opened, we find within a form precisely resembling 

 the Necromorphous form of the bee just described; whence 

 it appears clear that the so-called pupa? of the bee and the 

 fly are neither substantially nor numerically the same state. 

 Every ecdysis or sloughing is a transformation ; so that, 

 calling the imago, as it certainly is, the ultimate state, then 

 the so-called pupa of the bee is the penultimate, and the 

 so-called pupa of the fly the antepenultimate. The differ- 

 ence is thus explained : the fly, on assuming the perfect 

 state, casts two skins, the bee only one. 



In turning to the other section of the Amorpha, namely, 

 the Amorpha adermata, including the butterflies, moths, 

 &c., we find, on examining them in the quiescent state, 

 abundant evidence that we have before us not only organ- 

 ized but animated beings ; in these the grubs, before be- 

 coming quiescent, cast their covering in the same manner 

 as the bee ; but still, unlike that insect, retain two distinct 

 coverings, thus resembling the Amorpha dermata. Both 



