40 METAMORPHOSES. 



They cease but still a voice I hear, 



A whisper' d voice of hope and joy, 

 Thy hour of rest approaches near, 



" Prepare thee, mortal ! thou must die ! 



. Yet start not ! on thy closing eyes 



" Another day shall still unfold, 

 " A sun of milder radiance rise, 

 " A happier age of joys untold. 



" Shall the poor worm that shocks thy sight, 



" The humblest form in nature's train, 

 " Thus rise in new-born lustre bright, 



"And yet the emblem teach in vain? 



"Ah ! where were once her golden eyes, 



" Her glittering wings of purple pride ? 

 " Concealed beneath a rude disguise, 



" A shapeless mass to earth allied. 



" Like thee the hapless reptile lived, 



" Like thee he toil'd, like thee he spun, 

 " Like thine his closing hour arrived, 



" His labour ceased, his web was done. 



" And shalt thou, number'd with the dead, 



" No happier state of being know? 

 "And shall no future morrow shed 



" On thee a beam of brighter glow ? 



" Is this the bound of power divine, 



" To animate an insect frame ? 

 " Or shall not He who moulded thine 



" Wake at his will the vital flame ? 



" Go, mortal ! in thy reptile state, 



" Enough to know to thee is given ; 

 " Go, and the joyful truth relate ; 



" Frail child of earth ! high heir of heaven ! " 



A question here naturally presents itself Why are insects subject to 

 these changes ? For what end is it that, instead of preserving, like other 

 animals 1 , the same general form from infancy to old age, they appear at one 

 period under a shape so different from that which they finally assume; and 

 why should they pass through an intermediate state of torpidity so extraordi- 

 nary ? I can only answer that such is the will of the Creator, who doubtless 

 had the wisest ends in view, although we are incompetent satisfactorily to 

 discover them. Yet one reason for this conformation may be hazarded. A 

 very important part assigned to insects in the economy of nature, as I 

 shall hereafter show, is that of speedily removing superabundant and de- 



1 A few vertebrate animals, viz. frogs, toads, and newts, undergo metamorphoses 

 in some respects analogous to those of insects ; their first form as tadpoles being 

 very different from that which they afterwards assume. These reptiles, too, as 

 well as snakes, cast their skin by an operation somewhat similar to that in larvce. 

 There is nothing, however, in their metamorphoses at all resembling the pupa state 

 in insects. (See, however, Von Baer's article on the Analogies of the Transforma- 

 tions of Insects and the Higher Animals in the Annales des Sciences Nat.} Accord- 

 ing to Mr. J. V.Thompson, both the common barnacles and many Crustacea undergo 

 metamorphoses, but to what extent these changes take place in the latter does not 

 seem clearly ascertained. 



