THE BEE. 13 



in a tough and hermetically sealed case : this period of 

 their existence is known as the pupa or chrysalis state. 

 This metamorphosis, so well exemplified in the 

 common Butterfly, is perhaps the most remarkable 

 phenomenon in animated nature; and it has been 

 compared by the poetic mind of Rogers to the final 

 transition that takes place in ourselves when our 

 soul wings its upward flight to heaven. He has ex- 

 pressed himself in language so sublime, that we can- 

 not refrain from introducing his verses, which wiU 

 serve to relieve the monotony of our physiological 

 studies : — 



" Child of the Sun ! pursue thy rapturous flight, 

 Mingling with her thou loVst in fields of light ; 

 And where the flowers of paradise unfold, 

 Quaff fragrant nectar from their caps of gold. 

 There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky, 

 Expand and shut with silent ecstasy. 

 Yet thou wert once a worm, a thing that crept 

 On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept ! 

 And such is man, — soon from his cell of clay 

 To burst a seraph in the blaze of day ! " 



The animals called Insecta, or insects, then, are 

 characterized by the possession of a homy external 

 case or envelope composed of rings, and are furnished 

 with three pairs of articulated legs, one pair of arti- 

 . culated feelers, and usually one or two pairs of 

 wings, whilst their life-history is marked by a more 

 or less complete transition from the imperfect or 

 larval to the perfect or imago form. 



Let us now glance rapidly at the classification of the 



