86 METAMORPHOSES. 
fact, with his limited knowledge on these subjects, so very preposterous. 
It is even possible that some of the wondrous tales of the ancients were 
grafted on the changes which they observed to take place in insects. The 
death and revivification of the phenix, from the ashes of which, before 
attaining its perfect state, arose first a worm (oxwAng), in many of its parti- 
culars resembles what occurs in the metamorphoses of insects. Nor is it 
very unlikely that the doctrine of the metempsychosis took its rise from 
the same source. What argument would be thought by those who main~ 
tained this doctrine more plausible, in favour of the transmigration of souls, 
than the seeming revivification of the dead chrysalis? What more probable 
than that its apparent re-assumption of life should be owing to its receiv- 
ing for tenant the soul of some criminal doomed to animate an insect of 
similar habits with those which had defiled his human tenement ?? 
At the present day, however, the transformations of insects have lost. 
that excess of the marvellous, which might once have furnished arguments 
for the fictions of the ancients, and the dreams of Paracelsus. We call 
them metamorphoses and transformations, because these terms are in 
common use, and are more expressive of the sudden changes that ensue 
than any new ones. But, strictly, they ought rather to be termed a series 
of developments. A caterpillar is not, in fact, a simple but a compound 
animal, containing within it the germ of the future butterfly, enclosed in 
what will be the case of the pupa, which is itself included in the three or 
more skins, one over the other, that will successively cover the larva. 
As this increases in size these parts expand, present themselves, and are in 
turn thrown off, until at length the perfect insect, which had been con- 
cealed in this succession of masks, is displayed in its genuine form. That 
this is the proper explanation of the phenomenon has been satisfactorily 
proved by Swammerdam, Malpighi, and other anatomists. The first-men- 
tioned illustrious naturalist discovered, by accurate dissections, not only 
the skins of the larva and of the pupa encased in each other, but within 
them the very butterfly itself, with its organs indeed in an almost fluid 
state, but still perfect in all its parts.? Of this fact you may convince 
yourself without Swammerdam’s skill, by plunging into vinegar or spirit of 
wine a caterpillar about to assume the pupa state, and letting it remain 
there a few days for the purpose of giving consistency to its parts; or by 
boiling it in water for a few minutes. A very rough dissection will then 
enable you to detect the future butterfly ; and you will find that the wings, 
rolled up into a sort of cord, are lodged between the first and second seg- 
ment of the caterpillar ; that the antenna 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 discovered the eggs of the future moth in 
the chrysalis of a silkworm only a few days old*, and Reaumur those of 
another moth (Hypogymna dispar) even in the caterpillar, and that seven 
1 “A priest who has drunk wine shall migrate into a moth or fly, feeding on 
ordure. He who steals the gold of a priest shall pass a thousand times into the 
bodies of spiders, Ifaman shall steal honey, he shal! be born a great stinging 
gnat: if oil, an oil-drinking beetle; if salt, a cicada; if a household utensil, an 
ichneumon fly,” Institutes of Menu, 853, 
2 Hill’s Swamm. ii. 24, t. 37. f. 2.4, 
* De Bombyce, 29. 
