BOTANICAL: THE LOWER ORDERS. 127 



Inay be when grown, are found entire ; insects issue from 

 an egg enveloped in its shell, which encloses them in all 

 their proportions. Plants grow daily by the accession* of 

 alimentary particles; insects are developed, swell, and in- 

 crease by means of a nutritive juice. Plants at first put 

 forth a stem, and afterwards clothe themselves with leaves; 

 insects begin by appearing in the form of a worm, and 

 then acquire wings. The leaves of plants are full of 

 nerves, which divide into a multitude of ramifications; 

 the wings of insects have likewise a vast number of 

 similar nerves. Leaves differ from one another in form 

 and in the sinuations of their margin ; wings likewise 

 are varied by their configuration, and by the manner in 

 which their extremities are indented. Plants push out 

 flower-buds ; insects become nymphs and chrysalids. As 

 those buds, after having flowered, give fruit in their 

 maturity ; nymphs and chrysalids, after a certain time, 

 produce perfect insects. Lastly, as fruit contains the 

 seed proper for perpetuating the species of plant which 

 produces them, insects, when arrived at their state of 

 perfection, carry also within them the seed from which 

 similar insects are to be generated." * 



Many of our common garden-flower seeds might well 

 be placed in comparison or contrast with the eggs of some 

 of the commonest of our moths and butterflies. As a 

 good judge will always tell the name of the painter 

 when he looks upon one picture on comparing it with 

 another, so the same handiwork is visible and the same 

 artist recognized in the exquisite sculpture which these 

 beautiful eggs and seeds have for the external envelope 

 which encloses the germ of a future life. 



Seeds belong to flowering plants ; but plants that are 

 flowerless, and do not, therefore, bear seed properly so 



* M. Lesser (1799), in Insecto-Theology." 



