SECT. XXXIX. 4. 2. GENERATION. 389 



lar in changing into a butterfly acquires a new form, with new 

 powers, new fenfations, and new defires. 



The natural hiftory of butterflies, and moths, and beetles, 

 and gnats, is full of curioflty ; fome of them pafs many months* 

 and others even years, in their caterpillar or grub (late ; they 

 then reft many weeks without food, fufpended in the air, buried 

 in the earth, or fubmerfed in water : and change themfelves 

 during this time into an animal apparently of a different nature ; 

 the (lomachs of fome of them, which before digefted vegetable 

 leaves or roots, now only digeft honey ; they have acquired 

 wings for the purpofe of feeking this new food, and a long pro- 

 bofcis to collect it from flowers, and I fuppofe a fenfe of fmell to 

 deteft the fecret places in flowers, where it is formed. The 

 moths, which fly by night, have a much longer probofcis rolled 

 up under their chins like a watch fpring ; which they extend to 

 collet the honey from flowers in their fleeping ftate ; when they 

 are clofed, and the nectaries in confequence more difficult to be 

 plundered. The beetle kind are furniftied with an external 

 covering of a hard material to their wings, that they may occa- 

 iionally again make holes in the earth, in which they paffed the 

 former ftate of their exiftence. 



But what moft of all diftinguifhes thefe new animals is, that 

 they are now furnifhed with the powers of reproduction ; and 

 that they now differ from each other in fex, which does not ap- 

 pear in their caterpillar or grub ftate. In fome of them the 

 change from a caterpillar into a butterfly or moth feems to be 

 accomplimed for the fole purpofe of their propagation ; (ince 

 they immediately die after this is iiniftied, and take no food in 

 the interim, as the filk-worm in this climates ; though it is pofli- 

 blc it might take honey as food, if it was prefented to it. For 

 in general it would feem, that food of a more ftimulating kind, 

 the honey of vegetables inftead of their leaves, was neceffary for 

 the purpofe of the feminal reproduction of thefe animals, exactly 

 fimilar to what happens in vegetables ; in thefe the juices of the 

 earth are fufficient for their purpofe of reproduction by buds or 

 bulbs ; in which the new plant feems to be formed by irritative 

 motions, like the growth of their other parts, as their leaves or 

 roots j but for the purpofe of feminal or amatorial reprodu&ion, 

 \vhere fenfation is required, a more ftimulating food becomes 

 necefTary for the anther and ftigma ; and this food is honey ; 

 as explained in Set. XIII. on Vegetable Animation. 



The gnat and the tadpole refemble each other in their change 

 from natant animals with gills into aerial animals with Jungs ; 

 and in their change of the element in which they live; and proba- 

 bly of the food, with which they are fupported ; and laftly, with 



their 



