161 
XXVI. 
OBSERVATIONS ON A SINGULAR NATURAL PRODUCTION, 
IN WHICH ONE PART APPEARS TO BE A PLANT 
AND THE OTHER AN INSECT, ACCOMPA- 
NIED WITH A SPECIMEN. 
By Rey. MANASSEH CUTLER, t.p. F. a. A. 
“IT often happens that things, which at first view seeni miracu- 
lous, are found on examination to be not miraculous, but produced in 
the regular course of nature. This has been lately remarkably de- 
monstrated by the ‘example of a certain insect, which the French 
collectors call the Vegetating Fly. The story goes, that in America 
is produced an insect, which, laying aside its animal nature, is trans- 
formed by a more than Ovidian metamorphosis, to a vegetable ; so 
that we are no longer to consider as idle tales the caastormation of 
Daphne toa laurel, or of Narcissus to a flower. ve 
Not long since Capt. Melvil, returning from the island of St. Do- 
mingo, brought with him to London some small productions of a 
mixed nature, whose lower part was a real insect, but the upper part 
a plant. ‘The insect was equal in magnitude to a bee, and the plant 
was an inch inlength. ‘Thecollectors of these wonderful productions, 
who brought them to Mr. Melvil, informed him, that the insect was 
a species of wasp, which, having lived to a certain period, lost all mo- 
tion, and was changed in the upper part into a plant, which gradually 
increased, while the figure and substance of the insect were pees con 
in the lower part. 
The admiration of the most sagacious naturalists in England w was 
very much excited by this then unheard of nature miraculum. Many 
‘21 
