72 METAMORPHOSES. 



idea of that resemblance, in every particular, which, at 

 one time, was thought to obtain between the metamor- 

 phosis of insects, especially of the Lepidoptera order, 

 and the resurrection of the body, d<5 away that general 

 analogy which cannot fail to strike every one who at 

 all considers the subject. Even Swammerdam, whose 

 observations have proved that the analogy is not so 

 complete as had been imagined, speaking of the meta- 

 morphosis of insects, uses these strong words : " This 

 process is formed in so remarkable a manner in butter- 

 flies, that we see therein the resurrection painted before 

 our eyes, and exemplified so as to be examined by our 

 hands*." To see, indeed, a caterpillar crawling upon 

 the earth, sustained by the most ordinary kinds of food, 

 which, when it has existed a few weeks or months under 

 this humble form, its appointed work being finished, 

 passes into an intermediate state of seeming death, when 

 it is wound up in a kind of shroud and encased in a 

 coffin, and is most commonly buried under the earth, 

 (though sometimes its sepulchre is in the water, and at 

 others in various substances in the air,) and after this 

 creature and others of its tribe have remained their de- 

 stined time in this death-like state, to behold earth, air, 

 and water, give up their several prisoners : to survey 

 them, when, called by the warmth of the solar beam, 

 they burst from their sepulchres, cast off their cerements, 

 from this state of torpid inactivity, come forth, as a bride 

 out of her chamber, to survey them, I say, arrayed in 

 their nuptial glory, prepared to enjoy a new and more 

 exalted condition of life, in which all their powers are 

 developed, and they are arrived at the perfection of their 



* Hill's Swamm. i. 127 a. 



