72 



This is the end of the females. The males nerer resort 

 to the river, but having done their office, drop down 

 and die. 



In a life of three or four days, they eat nothing. 

 They have no apparatus for that purpose, yet they 

 have strength to shed their skin, and to perform the 

 ends of their life with great vivacity. 



But how poor an end to our apprehension is an- 

 swered by the life of this, and innumerable other 

 animals ? 



18. The eggs of Butterflies do not increase in bulk 

 "while in the body of the female. As soon as they are 

 impregnated by the male, tiny are ready to be laid ; 

 but this requires some time, both because of their num. 

 ber, and the nicety with which she arranges them. 

 This indeed is the whole business of her life ; for when 

 they are laid, she dies. 



The female does not deposit them at random, but 

 searches out a sort of plant which the caterpillars can 

 feed on as soon as they are hatched. Neither does she 

 scatter them irregularly and without order, but dis- 

 poses them with perfect symmetry, and fastens them 

 together by a viscous liquor discharged from her own 

 entrails. And those species uhose hinder part is co. 

 vcred with long- hairs, gradually throw them all off, 

 and therewith make a nest wherein the eggs are kept 

 safely till the time of their hatching. 



19. Some Caterpillars are hatched in the spring, as 

 soon as the leaves they are to be fed on begin to bud. 

 After thirteen days, they change into aurelia, and 

 riaving passed three weeks in that state 3 they issue forth 

 winged, with all the beauty of their parents. 



The wings of butterflies fully distinguish them from 

 flies of every other kind. They are four in number ; 

 and though two of them be cut off, the animal can fly 

 with the two remaining. They are in their own sub- 

 sistence transparent ; but owe their opacity to the 

 beautiful dust with which they are covered, and which 



