FLORAL AND INSECT ANALOGIES. 307 



Flowers, but with the substitution of only a single word, do 

 they not apply precisely unto Butterflies, which like them are 

 wont to 



" expand their light and soul-like wings, 



Teaching us "by most persuasive reasons 

 How akin they are to human things. 



And with.child-like credulous affection, 



We behold those tender (wings) expand, 

 Emblems of our own great resurrection, 



Emblems of the bright and better land." 



But it is not a mere poetic, much less a fanciful, analogy 

 which links the Butterfly by a thousand golden chains with 

 the loveliest productions of the vegetable world. The leaf 

 and the Caterpillar, the flower and the Butterfly, seem, as it 

 has been said, made for each other; though we must certainly 

 admit that the plant would, to all appearance, do much better 

 without the insect, than the insect without the plant, which 

 furnishes the Caterpillar with sustenance, and the Butterfly 

 with a velvet cushion for repose, or a nectared cup for 

 refreshment. 



Independently of this bond of use (more mutual perhaps 

 than we are at present able to discern,) there has been traced 

 by naturalists an intimate analogy of states and developments 

 between the Lepidopterous Insect and the perfect vegetable. 

 The Caterpillar, disclosed from the egg, encases in its various 

 skins the gradually expanding form of the future Butterfly ; 

 as the plant, burst from the seed or bulb, encloses in its 



