TRANSFORMATIONS OF MOTHS. 51 



study we would recommend it to ladies as next to botany in 

 interest and in the ease in which specimens may be collected and 

 examined. The example of Madam Merian, and several ladies 

 in this country who have greatly aided science by their well 

 filled cabinets, and critical knowledge of the various species 

 and their transformations, is an earnest of what may be 

 expected from their followers. Though the moths are easy 

 to study compared with the bees, flies, beetles and bugs, and 

 dragon flies, yet many questions of great interest in philosoph- 

 ical entomology have been answered by our knowledge of their 

 structure and mode of growth. The great works of Herold on 

 the evolution of a caterpillar ; of Lyonet on the anatomy of the 

 Cossus; of Newport on that of the Sphinx; and of Siebold on 

 the parthenogenesis of insects, are proofs that the moths have 

 engaged the attention of some of the master minds in science. 



The study of the transformations of the moths is also of great 

 importance to one who would acquaint himself with the ques- 

 tions concerning the growth and metamorphoses and origin of 

 animals. We should remember that the very words " metamor- 

 phosis" and "transformation," now so generally applied to 

 other groups of animals and used in philosophical botany, were 

 first suggested by those who observed that the moth and 

 butterfly attain their maturity only by passing through 

 wonderful changes of form and modes of life. 



The knowledge of the fact that all animals pass through some 

 sort of a metamorphosis is very recent in physiology. More- 

 over the fact that these morphological eras in the life of an 

 individual animal accord most unerringly with the gradation of 

 forms in the type of which it is a member, was the discovery of 

 the eminent physiologist Von Baer. Up to this time the true 

 significance of the luxuriance and diversity of larval forms had 

 never seriously engaged the attention of systematists in ento- 

 mology. 



What can possibly be the meaning of all this putting on and 

 taking off of caterpillar habiliments, or in other words, the 

 process of moulting, with the frequent changes in ornamenta- 

 tion, and the seeming fastidiousness and queer fancies and 

 strange conceits of these young and giddy insects seems hidden 

 and mysterious to human observation. Indeed, few care to 

 spend the time and trouble necessary to observe the insect 

 through its transformations ; and that done, if only the larva of 



