XX PREFACE. 



works were designed to afford His rational 

 creatures useful and pleasing instruction. The 

 wisest of men says, " Go to the ant, thou 

 sluggard, and be wise."* The inspired Jeremiah 

 says, in reference to the knowledge of the stork 

 and swallow, that they are aware of their 

 " appointed times," and " the times of their 

 coming." f Our Saviour directs the attention of 

 man to the fowls of the air, and the lilies of the 

 field, as affording good moral lessons. St 

 Paul, in his refutation of the gainsayers in their 

 philosophical unbelief, impugns their false doc- 

 trines, by an illustration of the possibility of the 

 resurrection from the dead, drawn from the 

 ordinary process of vegetation. J A closer 

 analogy will, however, I think, be found in the 

 transformation of Insects ; as is more fully 

 illustrated in our observations on the Sphinx 

 Ocellata. 



Wherever the student of Nature turns his 

 eye, he perceives objects which command his 



* PROVERBS, vi. 6. f JEREMIAH, viii. 7. 



\ CORINTHIANS, xv. 36, &c. Plate 62. 



