356 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Tra 



(Estrus generally places her eggs on those parts of the horse's 

 body which can be most easily touched with the tongue, that is, 

 at the inner part of the knees, on the shoulders, and rarely on 

 the outer part of the mane. When licking itself, the horse 

 carries them, and the larvae which soon emerge from the e<*s, 



* c? OO * 



into his stomach with his food. It passes through various 

 stages in the horse, and on leaving the body of the horse in its 

 last stage, falls to the ground, after which, in due time, it takes 

 wing and flies off. i. 



The Transient. 



What an emblem of all transient things is the beautiful 

 ephemera ! To acquire its elegant form that lovely winged 

 insect has been obliged to undergo several wonderful transmuta- 

 tions; but its glory, like man's pomp, is very short-lived, for the 

 very hour of its perfection is the hour of its death, and it seems 

 scarcely introduced to pleasure when it is obliged to part with 



life. A. 







The Law of Transmutation. 



Nothing remains fixed. Throughout Nature all substances are 

 perpetually changing their forms, and passing into each other. 

 It is so with even the hardest substances. We find that even 

 anchors, cannons, and other cast-iron implements, which have 

 been buried for a few hundred years off our English coast, have 

 decomposed in part or entirely, turning the sand or gravel which 

 enclosed them into a conglomerate, cemented together by oxide 

 of iron. We know not what possibilities of transmutation are 

 included in the nature of a human being ; but we have ascer- 

 tained with certainty that there is inherent in even some of the 

 lower creatures a transformative principle, the operation of which 

 is perfectly extraordinary and fraught with suggestiveness. 

 Take the following example : On a hot July day a lover of 

 Nature discovered numbers of animalculae in a vessel of rain- 

 water which was exposed to the action of the air. In order to 

 learn more of their habits, one of them, which scarcely measured 

 an eighth of an inch in length, was captured, and placed in a 

 hyacinth glass, wherein a seedling oak was growing. Upon 

 regaining its liberty the little thing immediately swam to the 



