is no real or abfolute change produced in the identity 

 of the creature itfelf, or that it is in reality only the 

 gradual and progreflive evolution of parts before con- 

 cealed, and which lay mafqued under the form of an 

 infedt of a widely different appearance, yet it is juftly 

 viewed with the highell admiration, and even gene- 

 rally acknowledged as in the mod lively manner ty- 

 pical of the lafl; eventful change. 



If any regard is to be paid to a fimilarity of names, 

 it fhould feem that the ancients were fufficiently ftruck 

 with the transformations of the butterfly, and its re- 

 vival from a feeming temporary death, as to have 

 confidered it as an emblem of the foul, the Greek 

 word ^v^n fignifying both the foul and a butterfly. 



Modern Natural Hiftorians, imprefled with the fame 

 idea, and laudably folicitous to apply it as an illuftra- 

 tion of the awful myftery revealed in the facred writ- 

 ings, have drawn their allufions to it from the dor- 

 mant condition of the papilionaceous infedts during 

 their ftate of chrylalis, and their refufcitation from it : 

 but they have unfortunately chofen a fpecies the ieaft 

 proper for the purpofe, viz. the Silkworm; a fpecies 

 which neither undergoes its change under the furface 

 of the earth, nor, when emerged from its tomb, is it 

 an infedl of any remarkable beauty ; but the larva, or 

 caterpillar of the Sphinx, when fatiate of the food al- 

 lotted to it during that ftate, retires to a very confi- 

 derable depth beneath the furface of the ground, where 

 it diverts itfelf of all appearance of its former ftate, and 

 continues buried for feveral months, then rifes to the 

 furface, and burffs from the confinement of its tomb, 



and 



