ADULT STAGE OF LIFE. 95 



not thus laid up in case coverings, nor do they rest 

 with their legs folded, but walk actively about. 



Insects, when laid up in these case coverings, were 

 fancied by Linnaeus to resemble infants bewrapt in 

 swaddling bands, once common all over Europe, and 

 a Latin word (*), indicating this, was thence applied ; 

 and to those not laid up, but remaining active, the 

 fanciful term, nymph. The latter is objectionable, 

 because it can only be applied to female insects, while- 

 it has been indiscriminately used for both male and 

 female. The former, though almost naturalized in 

 English, is liable to the same objection, and ought, 

 therefore, to be in the neuter gender. So far as this 

 term means an infant, it is incorrect, but the Romans 

 used it "both for a baby, a doll, and a girl before ar- 

 riving at womanhood, and in this latter sense it may 

 be used, if no better term occur. 



ADULT STAGE OF LIFE IN INSECTS. 



IN the same vein with the fanciful resemblance of 

 a caterpillar to a masked insect, and of an adolescent 

 insect to an infant wrapt in swaddling bands, Linnaeus 

 fancied that the adult insect, now unmasked and un- 

 swaddlecl, resembled a picture, image, effigy, copy, 

 pattern, or representation of an insect, and thence 

 adopted a Latin word ( 2 ) implying this, which is still 

 used by modern writers, though evidently both far- 

 fetched and incorrect, as it plainly means, not the 

 insect itself, but a statue or spectre of it. The disci- 

 ples of Linnaeus, however, accustomed to the art of 

 inventing fanciful meanings for words, and of mysti- 

 fying the plainest facts, will, no doubt, maintain that 

 Imago does not mean an image, but the insect itself ; 

 in the same way as those of the modern schools will 



(l) The Latin word is Pupa, better Pupum. 

 (2) The Latin word is Imago, whence our English word Image. 



