LETTER XXIX. 



STATES OF INSECTS. 



EGG STATE. 



ON a former occasion I gave you a general idea of what 

 has been called, perhaps not improperly, the metamor- 

 phosis of insects 3 ; but since that time much novel and 

 interesting speculation on the subject has employed the 

 pens of many eminent Physiologists ; and besides this, 

 the doctrine then advanced of successive developments 

 has been altogether denied by a very able Anatomist, 

 Dr. Herold, who, with a hand, eye, and pencil, second 

 only to those of Lyonnet, has traced the changes that 

 gradually take place in the structure of the cabbage-but- 

 terfly (Pieris Brassicce) on passing through its several 

 states of larva, pupa, and imago. It is necessary, there- 

 fore, that previously to considering separately and in 



a The word p£Tcipo(><pou, and its derivative fiirafcoQipaarig, are not 

 extant in any Greek writer before the date of the New Testament. 

 They are used to express any external change of form or colour, and 

 metaphorically an inward change and progressive improvement of the 

 mind. Comp. Matth. xvii. 2. Mli&n. Far. Hist. 1. i. c. 1. Rom. xiii. 2. 

 2 Cor. hi. 18. They are, therefore, not improperly applied, as some 

 have supposed, to the changes of insects. 



