ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF INSECTS. 18 



unsightly and voracious worm should pass through a shrouded 

 and death-like sleep, and wake at last a glorious butterfly, to 

 bask in sun-shine, bathe in realms of liquid air, and quaff the 

 heaven-distilled nectar of beauteous flowers ! Well might such 

 a miracle be made a poet's theme ! Well might those phi- 

 losophers, on whose minds there dawned, albeit dimly, the 

 great truth of an after life ; — well might they imagine their 

 toilsome existence typified in the caterpillar, their descent to 

 the quiet grave in the tomb-like repose of the chrysalis, and 

 the hereafter they sighed for, in the spirit-like resurrection of 

 the happy butterfly ; — and, seizing with avidity the idea, well 

 might they designate these aerial creatures by the name of 

 " souls." 



Wonderful indeed is this transformation from one form to 

 another, and wonderful it ever must remain ; yet science has 

 offered us an explanation, which, while it fills us with admi- 

 ration, strips the subject of that paradoxical seeming which led 

 some of our predecessors to suppose that one animal was 

 actually converted into another ; science has shown us that the 

 butterfly pre-exists not only in the chrysalis but in the crawling 

 caterpillar. 



It is a very general and a very convenient opinion, that an 

 insect is a being having a quadruple existence ; that at birth it 

 is an egg ; which hatching produces a larva or caterpillar ; this 

 becomes a pupa, and finally an imago ; from the imago eggs 

 again proceed, and thus the round of existence is complete. 

 This is confessedly a convenient idea, but the possibility of its 

 application is so partial, that definitions drawn from it must be 

 incomplete, — methods founded on it wholly artificial. 



When an organized being first exists, it does not, as far as 

 human observation has reached, bear any resemblance to its 

 parent. When an organized being has reached perfection, it 

 precisely resembles its parent. The degrees or steps by which 

 a being mounts to this perfection and similarity to its parent, 

 constitute that which in an insect is termed metamorphosis. 



In every organized being there is a tendency in every part of 

 its substance to become unfitted for its functions, and therefore 

 useless. There is in every organized being a tendency to 



to state, that the Publishing Committee of that Society thought it unsuitable tor 

 publication in the Transactions, and returned it to the author accordingly. — Ed. 



