ORDER IV. MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 127 



the appearance and beauty of the insect, as well as in its 

 form and structure. Some of the handsomest caterpillars 

 issue from their cocoons the plainest, even the ugliest look- 

 ing butterflies, and vice versa. Thus the potato-worm is 

 remarkable for its beautifully variegated colors, but when 

 it becomes adult as a hawk-moth it has a uniform dingy 

 gray color. But the contrary is often the case, and an in- 

 significant-looking caterpillar is as often metamorphosed 

 into a very handsome butterfly. 



Such changes, however, are not confined to insects, but 

 are also common throughout the animal kingdom, as well 

 in the highest as the lowest classes, and would seem to be 

 something more than a mere freak of nature. 



But the metamorphosis of Butterflies and Moths has al- 

 ways been a subject of interesting contemplation and of 

 profound analogical reasoning, and has ever been considered 

 the true type of man's existence here, and his brighter and 

 happier life hereafter. In the most ancient times it prob- 

 ably gave origin and strength to the belief in the transmi- 

 gration of souls, metempschycosis, as also to a thousand 

 fabulous stories and fairy tales, in the same manner as the 

 annual casting of the skin of snakes, by which process that 

 reptile appears every spring in a new dress of bright and 

 glittering colors, has given rise, even in the remotest antiq- 

 uity, to the idea of regeneration and endless life hereafter. 



Caterpillars, notwithstanding their beauty, are very gen- 

 erally disliked on account of the immense injury they do to 

 vegetation; but the prevailing prejudice against them, in 

 my opinion, arises more from the general ignorance of their 

 uses, and the benefit they are capable of conferring upon 

 man, than upon the actual amount of damage done by them. 

 We will mention some of their uses, and again endeavor to 

 convince our readers that none of the works of nature are 

 so insignificant as to be wholly without use in the great 

 plan of economy. 



