138 THE UNIVERSE. 



ing with azure and gold, and if this butterfly were re- 

 stricted to the fresh leaves of which it devoured such 

 quantities in its youth, it would die of inanition; it re- 

 quires a more delicate noimshment now that it has become 

 adorned with its brilliant wings, and only lives on the 

 nectar of flowers. 



The Libellula, or dragon-fly, when it appears in its last 

 dress, assumes different habits. It has passed all its life 

 beneath the water in the condition of an ignoble larva, soiled 

 with mud and filth; but noAv that the time has come, it 

 aspires to soar into the air. Having mounted on some plant 

 or other, it attaches its acpiatic garment to it, and equij^s 

 itself Avith brilliant iridescent wings of gauze which bear 

 it away. The metamorphosis is so radical, and its new 

 wants so imperious, that if we attempt to retain the insect 

 a single minute longer in its ancient element it will jDerish 

 on the spot. It has lived till now in shade and tainted 

 water; henceforth it can only breathe the pure air and 

 in a glowing light. ^ 



The grown insect differs so widely from the young, that 

 one cannot in the least recognize the one in the other. 

 The Scarabfeus, or sacred beetle, with its emerald elytra, 

 which was worshipped in ancient Egypt, does not in the 

 least resemble the hideous subterranean worm which pro- 

 duces it; a singular metamorphosis, in which, according 

 to M. Goury, the nations on the banks of the Nile only 

 beheld the symbol of the transmigration of souls. 



' This insect is so little like itself at different stages that any one who did 

 not know its metamorphoses would look upon it as an animal belonging to 

 totally different genera. The nymph of the dragon-fly has been taken by 

 Eoudelet for the aquatic Cygala; by Mouffet for the water-flea or grasshopper; 

 and by Eedi for the aquatic scorpion. The three different states of certain 

 Acridia have also been described as three different insects. — Lesser, Theologie 

 cles Insectes. Trad, de Lyouet. Paris, 1745, p. 169. 



