METAMORPHOSES. 71 



lodged between the first and second segment of the cater- 

 pillar; that the antennae and trunk are coiled up in front 

 of the head ; and that the legs, however different their 

 form, are actually sheathed in its legs. Malpighi disco- 

 vered the eggs of the future moth, in the chrysalis of a 

 silkworm only a few days old a , and Reaumur those of 

 Bombyx dispar even in the caterpillar, and that seven or 

 eight days before its change into the pupa b . A cater- 

 pillar, then, may be regarded as a locomotive egg, having 

 for its embryo the included butterfly, which after a cer- 

 tain period assimilates to itself the animal substances by 

 which it is surrounded; has its organs gradually deve- 

 loped ; and at length breaks through the shell which in- 

 closes it. 



This explanation strips the subject of every thing mi- 

 raculous, yet by no means reduces it to a simple or un- 

 interesting operation. Our reason is confounded at the 

 reflection that a larva, at first not thicker than a thread, 

 includes its own triple, or sometimes octuple, teguments ; 

 the case of a chrysalis, and a butterfly, all curiously fold- 

 ed in each other; with an apparatus of vessels for breath- 

 ing and digesting, of nerves for sensation, and of muscles 

 for moving; and that these various forms of existence 

 will undergo their successive evolutions, by aid of a few 

 leaves received into its stomach. And still less able are 

 we to comprehend how this organ should at one time be 

 capable of digesting leaves, at another only honey ; how 

 one while a silky fluid should be secreted, at another 

 none ; or how organs at one period essential to the ex- 

 istence of the insect, should at another be cast oft, and 

 the whole system which supported them vanish. 



* Be Bombyce, 29, h Reaum. i. 350, 



