THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 99 



becomes degraded, in order to pass into the species de- 

 prived of wings, it undergoes the same modifications. 



Certain flies which never fly and remain all their lives 

 adherent to the feathers of the swallow, have nevertheless 

 vestiges of wings, but quite unsuited to flight; whilst others, 

 finally, still more degraded, have none at all, and pass their 

 lives clinging to the wool of the sheep. 



CHAPTER I. 



MARVELS OF INSECT ORGANIZATION. 



The torch of anatomy has shed a flood of light upon the 

 organization of the inferior animals, and the microscope, 

 by allowing us to pry into the most inaccessible nooks of 

 it, has unfolded before our eyes a horizon as vast as it was 

 unexpected. But it must be admitted, that if the investi- 

 gation of infinitely small beings has acquired such an 

 advanced degree of certainty, it owes it to men who have 

 often devoted all their lives to the object. 



An advocate of Maestricht, Lyonet, passed nearly all 

 his life in studying a caterpillar which gnaws the wood of 

 the willow, and produced on this insect only one of the 

 most splendid monuments of human patience. 



Goedart, a Dutch painter, spent twenty of his best years 

 in watching the metamorphoses of insects — a most interest- 

 ing spectacle for him who looks at it Avith the eye of reli- 

 gion. Hence, in the midst of our most brilliant parties 

 (into which affliction will yet make its way despite both 



