-METAMORPHOSES. 77 



" Ah ! where were once her golden eyes, 



" Her glittering wings of purple pride ? 

 " Conceal'd beneath a rude disguise, 



,( A shapeless mass to earth allied, 

 " Like thee the hapless reptile lived, 



" Like thee he toil'd, like thee he spun, 

 c ' Like thine his closing hour arrived, 



" His labour ceased, his web was done. 

 " And shalt thou, number'd with the dead, 



(f No happier state of being know ? 

 " And shall no future morrow shed 



" On thee a beam of brighter glow ? 



" Is this the bound of power divine, 



" To animate an insect frame ? 

 " Or shall not He who moulded thine 



" Wake at his will the vital flame ? 



H Go, mortal ! in thy reptile state, 



" Enough to know to thee is given ; 

 " Go, and the joyful truth relate; 



" Frail child of earth ! high heir of heaven ! " 



A question here naturally presents itself — Why are 

 insects subject to these changes? For what end is it 

 that, instead of preserving like other animals a the same 

 general form from infancy to old age, they appear at one 

 period under a shape so different from that which they 

 finally assume ; and why should they pass through an 

 intermediate state of torpidity so extraordinary? I can 



a A few vertebrate animals, viz. frogs, toads, and newts, undergo 

 metamorphoses in some respects analogous to those of insects; their 

 first form as tadpoles being very different from that which they after- 

 wards assume. These reptiles too, as well as snakes, cast their skin 

 by an operation somewhat similar to that in larva. There is no- 

 thing, however, in their metamorphoses at all resembling the pupa 

 state in insects. 



