11 



tion, soon escape from us by changing their forms. 

 These facts show the necessity of learning their habits 

 and changes, if we wish to apply a remedy to the evils 

 they occasion. The transformations of insects are 

 indeed exceedingly interesting in themselves, and are 

 almost without a parallel in the other animal races. 



Like birds, amphibious animals, and most fishes, 

 insects are produced from eggs ; but, unlike theirs, the 

 newly hatched young, either have not the same number 

 of members as their parents, or are wholly different 

 from them in form and habits. The offspring of rose- 

 bugs and of moths are not rose-bugs and moths ; they 

 are grubs and caterpillars, which, having been hatched 

 in situations where the parental instinct has discovered 

 their appropriate food, begin immediately to devour 

 what is before them, and at the expiration of a definite 

 period attain their full size, cast their skins, and ap- 

 pear in a new form. In this new form the insects are 

 said to be in the pupa or chrysalis state. Their former 

 activity and voracity cease ; they no longer use their 

 hmbs to change their situation, but remain with them 

 folded close to their bodies in a state of absolute ab- 

 stinence and almost complete torpidity and rest. In 

 process of time the delicate and tender skin that invests 

 their bodies hardens, the flesh, with its new-grown 

 skin, cleaves and separates beneath the old one, and 

 at length the imprisoned insects burst their useless 

 cases, withdraw their hmbs from their envelopes, and, 

 in due season, emerge from their retreats, warm and 

 dry themselves in the sunbeams, and launch upon their 

 untried wings into the air, the exact counterparts of 

 their progenitors. 



