$6o GENERATION. SJ.CT. XXXIX. 4, 



themfelves during this time into an animal appa- 

 rently of a different nature ; the ftomachs 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 probofcis to collecl it from flowers, and I 

 fuppofe a fenfe of fmeli to detect the fee ret 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 collecl the honey from flowers in 

 their fleeping ftate ; when they are clofed, and the 

 neclaries in confequence more difficult to be plun- 

 dered. The beetle kind are furnifhed with an ex- 

 ternal covering of a hard material lo 'their wings, 

 that they may occafionally again make holes in the 

 earth, in which they pafled the former ftate of their 

 exiilence. 



But what moft of all diftinguifhes thefe new ani- 

 mals is, that they arc new furnifhed with the powers 

 of reproduction ; an<J that they now differ from 

 each other in fex, which does not appear in 

 their caterpillar or grub ftate. In fome of them the 

 change from a caterpillar into a butterfly or moth 

 feems to be accomplifhed for the fole purpofe of 

 their propagation ; iince they immediately die after 

 this is finifhed, and take no food in the interim, as 

 the lilk-worm in this climate ; though it is poflible, 

 it might take honey as food, if it was prefented no 

 it. For in general it would feem, that food of a 

 more ftimulating kind, the honey of vegetables in- 

 ftead of their leaves, was necefiary for the purpofe 

 of the feminal reprodu&ion of thefe animals, ex- 

 a6tly iimilar 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 mo- 

 tions, like the growth of their other parts, as their 



leaves 



