§44 ^F INSECTS .IN GENERAL. 



The different changes of form which many infects un- 

 dergo, from their firft appearance as eggs, till they arrive 

 at their perfect and winged Hate, conftitute an import- 

 ant article in their hiilory : Thefe have been termed their 

 nietamorphofes, or transformations ; and, from the very 

 language employed to exprefs them, the falfe notions 

 xvhich were long entertained, even by naturalills, are flill 

 dlfcernable. 



A fly, a fpider, or an ant, infecls of the mofl: different 

 kinds in outward appearance, do not difler more widely 

 than the fame infeft does from itfelf, under the different 

 forms of a worm, a chryfalis, and a butterfly. What 

 is at prefcnt a worm, however, foon becomes a chryfalis, 

 ■which is again as fuddenly to be changed into a wing- 

 ed animal. Changes apparently fo inftantaneoufly pro- 

 duced, have been compared to the metamorphofes fo re- 

 nowned in ancient fable, and probably at fiifl fuggefted 

 tt.e idea of thofe transformations which fable has render- 

 ed fo celebrated. When an infe£t in fo fliort a fpace, ap- 

 peared under a form fo different from that which it lately 

 exhibited, men imagined that the change was real: They 

 trufted to appearances, without giving themfelves the 

 trouble of refledling on the improbability of the fa6r= 

 They who imagined that a piece of rotten wood or putrid 

 fiefli could become the eyes, limbs, and body of an infect 

 of fuch delicate organization, and confifting of mufcles, 

 nerves, veins, and arteries, could have but little difficul- 

 ty in admitting, that the flefla of a chryfalis might be 

 transformed into the wings of a butterfly, or that the Six- 

 teen limbs of a filk worm might furnifh fix for a moth. 



After true philofophy appeared, one cf the lirfl leffons 

 llie crave her votaries, was to beware of trufling too 'im- 

 jilicitly to appearances, and of admitting ideas that were 



neither 



